Umberto Eco Quotes

I want our students to be so accustomed to children of other cultures that the words 'diversity' and 'tolerance' won't be in their vocabulary. They won't need them - they'll live it.

I remember while I was at school some of my Muslim friends talked about a handful of people spoiling things in every culture. Hatred or hurt or pain isn't specific to a religion. I think it's a matter of acceptance. The one thing the world has to accept is everybody is different. What is normal to us is different and unusual to somebody else.

If there's any message to my work, it is ultimately that it's OK to be different, that it's good to be different, that we should question ourselves before we pass judgment on someone who looks different, behaves different, talks different, is a different color.

I think people should have the common courtesy and judgment - the good judgment - not to be - not to offend other peoples' faiths.

Yes, we are all different. Different customs, different foods, different mannerisms, different languages, but not so different that we cannot get along with one another. If we will disagree without being disagreeable.

When people talk about political correctness, the only element of any value is good manners.

Living the life I have lived - being raised by deaf parents, assimilating to a different culture, and the challenges I have faced over time - has given me insight to the fact that each person has their own complex, intricate story, and it's rarely what I suspect it is. We must have compassion and grace for each other. We must.

If you come from a place of love, and you're not saying, 'I'm better than you,' that's one thing that allows you to talk about different ethnicities. It's almost like laughing with each other.

We've known for a long time, and I think culturally we've accepted, that diversity is an important thing in the work of knowledge.

It is, therefore, essential that we guard our own thinking and not be among those who cry out against prejudices applicable to themselves, while busy spawning intolerances for others.

Learning to live with offence is the price of living in a diverse society.

It is notable how little empathy is cultivated or valued in our society. I put this down to our traditional racism and obsessive sectarianism. Even so, one would think that we would be encouraged to project ourselves into the character of someone of a different race or class, if only to be able to control him. But no effort is made.

Racism has a very quick expiration date when exposed to actual contact with people.

I think diversity is a challenge everywhere.

I think living in the U.S. it has given me an outsider's perspective on South Africa, and something that makes South Africans shine is our warm heartedness, and how we welcome and accept everyone, we are truly a nation of community, who embraces diversity.

We need to educate young people, give them the possibility to understand that the diversity is positive, to feel and experience it, so that they can then join forces in promoting more diverse world.

I'd never presume to understand what it's like to be in a community I've never been a part of, but I can show up, listen and learn.

It comes from within to not be ashamed of our brothers and sisters who have accents.

I grew up in the Mission District in San Francisco, which was largely Hispanic at the time. I was raised in a household that was really welcoming to diversity and encouraging about different people's viewpoints and ideas and backgrounds.

A lot of kids can't identify with the things I've done and where I'm from and who I am as an individual. That's why I've tried to be a person and live my life in a way that can be identified by all cultures.

The first step toward tolerance is respect and the first step toward respect is knowledge.

We need to be open minded to understand that there are lots of different levels of things going on and we shouldn't be so quick to judge - and certainly not to judge a whole race, a whole religion or a whole people - and a lot of that is going on.

Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating.

To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others.

Because we should always respect other nationalities, I have always tried to play them with dignity.