Intercultural Learning Quotes

ASEM should build a new Silk Road to actively boost exchanges between these two civilizations in the new century so that countries in Asia and Europe will build on their respective civilizations and respect, learn from, complement and benefit each other.

When you experience playing in two different leagues, you learn to adapt; you pick up elements from the best virtues of each culture.

I think you learn a lot about a country from its art. To me, it's part of the drama of life. It teaches you that there are places, moments and incidents in other cultures that genuinely have a life of their own.

If we are to prosper together in our increasingly small world, we must listen to -- and learn from each other's stories

I would love to be able to see as much of the world as possible, and volunteering, doing things in another community, living with a host family, are really effective ways to learn about cultures different from your own. And also to not feel lazy.

One of the most effective ways to learn about oneself is by taking seriously the cultures of others. It forces you to pay attention to those details of life which differentiate them from you.

Americans need to see people who are honestly trying to learn from each other, even as we make our own points powerfully and fight for our own values and policies.

When Europeans arrived on this continent, they blew it with the Native Americans. They plowed over them, taking as much as they could of their land and valuables, and respecting almost nothing about the native cultures. They lost the wisdom of the indigenous peoples-wisdom about the land and connectedness to the great web of life...We have another chance with all these refugees. People come here penniless but not cultureless. They bring us gifts. We can synthesize the best of our traditions with the best of theirs. We can teach and learn from each other to produce a better America.

Sometimes I thought of the Peace Corps as a reverse refugee organization, displacing all of us lost Midwesterners, and it was probably the only government entity that taught Americans to abandon key national characteristics. Pride, ambition, impatience, the instinct to control, the desire to accumulate, the missionary impulse - all of it slipped away.

Kids my age never left California. And here I was, going to school with Aboriginal kids in a dream-like location.

We in the so called 'Western civilisations' have so much to learn from other cultures, and they would stand to gain so much by learning from ours. We don't have all the answers - far from it... but nor do any other culture or religion.

I actually went to study with the Ramapoughs in New York. I wanted to be able to see the mountains and the forest, be around the people.

We're living with the Arabs; we have to understand them... Through knowing the Arabs, you know yourself better.

Who could think that children from the pockets of Himalaya sing folklore from Scotland and vice versa? Such an education in the initial years develops compassion and mutual respect for each other's skills.

We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us..... The old "manifest destiny" idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can - and that without cant, without the assumption of self-righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations.

A Senegalese poet said 'In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.' We must learn about other cultures in order to understand, in order to love, and in order to preserve our common world heritage.

Each culture has some knowledge. That's why I studied with Saj Dev, an Indian flute player. That's why I studied Stockhausen's music. The pygmies' music of the rain forest is very rich music. So the knowledge is out there. And I also believe one should seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. With that kind of inquisitiveness, one discovers things that were unknown before.

You know what you can gain when you sit down with the Moroccans. As a person and as a musician. That's how you grow.

I think the really significant part of it for us, for the western world, is we have a lot to gain from the Tibetans - there are certain lessons that are within Tibetan culture. I mean understandings of compassion and of nonviolence that are things that we really lack in our society.

Most of the people that I learned and experienced jazz with have been with foreign white people, mostly from France. Excluding my family.