Martha Nussbaum Quotes

No matter how certain I am about some culture or some group of people, my opinions are only as accurate as the amount of time I've spent with them.

You cannot transpose the U.S. system on Turkey, and the Turkish system on France etc. You have to understand the people and their culture. That's leadership.

If we dismiss from our minds the prejudice we may have against the Indians we shall be able to more clearly understand the impulses that govern both races.

For a journalist who covers the Muslim world, we have responsibilities to be familiar with that culture and to know how to respond to that.

Learn to understand the culture of those that you wish to influence.

Executives in Hollywood are missing a lot because they don't want to watch other cultures.

I think when you move to a country like the U.S., you need to understand the culture, to understand how people see the game, and adapt yourself.

I understand different cultures because I have travelled a lot.

We must teach the next generation to not just learn languages, but whole cultures and belief systems. We will then make more of an effort to understand people and their different cultures.

People have to start talking to know more about other cultures and to understand each other.

That is something that I always want to do when I arrive somewhere is to know about the culture of the country, about the club and make sure I know what it takes to wear the jersey.

I'm a British intern going in. I'm hoping that John will just kind of tackle it from who this person is and what she's about rather than trying to go in on her culture. We need to move a step forward than that.

If you're coming from America to Iraq, then how are you supposed to be objective? I mean, you could pay lip service to being objective, but how are you going to objective when you're embedded with the Marines? The Marines are saving your life every day and they're protecting you.

The two cultures of East and West are very different, and the priorities are very different. So when you understand that - if you are from this side or this side - when you understand that the other is different than you, and you respect these differences, you can build communication.

I had a hard time convincing students that they were going to North Africa to understand the North Africans, not to understand themselves.

I say the same thing that I've said for decades now, which is: don't go over to Japan trying to change it, thinking that you know better. Go there trying to understand.

Travel early and travel often. Live abroad, if you can. Understand cultures other than your own. As your understanding of other cultures increases, your understanding of yourself and your own culture will increase exponentially.

Now it is evident that a little insight into the customs of every people is necessary to insure a kindly communication; this, joined with patience and kindness, will seldom fail with the natives of the interior.

We have to allow ourselves the freedom to make mistakes, including cultural mistakes, in our first drafts. I believe it's okay to get cultural details wrong in your first draft. It's okay if stereotypes emerge. It just means that your experience is limited, that you're human.

The fact that television and tourism have made the whole world accessible has created the illusion that we enjoy intimate knowledge of other places, when we barely scratch their surface. For the vast majority, the knowledge of Thailand or Sri Lanka acquired through tourism consists of little more than the whereabouts of the beach.

I try to study the background of the country I am in and what were my hits there, so I can at least give them some of what they want. It's like a wedding - give them something old, something new, something borrowed and definitely something blue!

Multicultural markets are nuanced but not alien.

Iranians find Americans easy to deal with because they are straightforward. That … could give Iranians an advantage in any negotiations. But for Americans to understand Iranians, they must recognize that with Iranians the mind thinks something, the head feels something else, the tongue says something else, and manners do something else. It doesn’t mean people are lying. They are just dealing with you with a different character.

Travelers never think that they are the foreigners

The unknown makes people uncomfortable. And even living in a city that's as cosmopolitan as New York City is, there's so many things I don't know about other cultures, even though I encounter other cultures - maybe even 18 or 19 of them - when I get on a subway car every day.