"and so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to 'feel sorry' for a white woman had to put his words against two white people's. I need not remind you of their appearance and conduct on the stand - you saw them for yourselves. The witnesses for the state, with exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption - the evil assumption - that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negroes are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption that once associates with minds of their caliber.
"Which, gentlemen, we know in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negroes are not to be trusted around women - black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire."