Michael Chertoff Quotes

Many people of my generation grew up in developed countries thinking that the world was divided into two parts and that there was a wall round the developed world. They thought that poor people had no relevance to us. What happened on September 11 was that anybody who thought there was a wall now knows that there is no wall.

I think there is a place where self-awareness becomes self-preoccupation if you don't take what you have discovered and bring it to bear on the conditions of the world.

Communications are making this one world. Back in the day, 400-500 years ago, nobody knew what anyone else was doing. It's on the 6 O'Clock news now. Now we can say, Oh, that's the way they live. Oh, they do that!! Opportunities, the chance to bring about change, it's all based on communication. Communication and jet planes.

When we ignore the world outside the walls we suffer-as does it.

It's a civic virtue to be exposed to things that appear to be outside your interest. In a complex world, almost everything affects you – that closes the loop on pecuniary self-interest. Customers are always right, but people aren't.

Our responsibility is much greater than we might have supposed, because it involves all mankind.

Nowhere on this planet today is there an impregnable fortress, a continent or island so distant that it can ignore all the outer world.

You should be reflective of the world you live in.

We can't afford to live in isolation, and we need to teach our kids that the things that they do not only matter to others far away but impact others who live far away, and there are ripples of effect.

When we all start to wake up and realize that our comforts are fleeting, and more money is never going to save this world, maybe, just maybe, will we be able to return back to the grace of America's principal values.

I think progressives understand that we are Americans at the same time as we are global citizens. We are interested first and foremost in creating peace and prosperity here at home, but we aren't blind to the fact that injustice anywhere in the world is meaningful, important, and worth thinking about.

I want to see the world.

I'd just like to see athletes awake. And aware. There's so much going on and so much to know... We stay in our little boxes and don't think much about the outside world.

I don't know why I developed a social consciousness, but I really think I have a consciousness; I feel connected to everything and everybody in the world.

Americans are not sharp. You can be sharp in your own area, I guess, but in this world you gotta be conscious of everybody else in the world too. You just can't be drunken with constitution and hear, okay we're gonna do this and then you hear well, we're gonna go kill this guy 'cause he's a terrorist and you keep gettin' it.

Our task is to look at the world, and see it whole.

On our crowded planet there are no longer any internal affairs!

It is ridiculous ever to forget that you and your business are each implanted in the society of the moment. We cannot ignore the world of our time. We had better understand it.

I am trying to teach my children to feel a responsibility for their fellow human beings and a sense of connection with ... the world around them.

And I didn't know what that meant for a long time. It was only when I began to travel and look and live beyond my home that I understand my responsibility to others.

Simplicity enables us to live lives of integrity in the face of the terrible realities of our global village.

I feel a little whirl of dislocation -- the trademark sensation of the world being more closely knit together than you expected

Let us respect others no one lives alone in a city, a nation, or a world.

I am getting much more political as I get older. It's the duty of any writer, in particular, not to stand back from the world.

I want my children to understand the world, but not just because the world is fascinating and the human mind is curious. I want them to understand it so that they will be positioned to make it a better place