George-Etienne Cartier Quotes

We [French Canadians] may not assimilate, we may not blend, but for all that we are still the component parts of the same country.

The main hope of harmony in our troubled world lies rather in the plurality of our identities, which intertwine with each other and are resistant to drastic divisions

Preservation of one's own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures.

We are of course a nation of differences. Those differences don't make us weak. They're the source of our strength.

Our young men will marry your daughters and we shall be one people.

The Jews must be refused everything as a separate nation, and be granted everything as individuals.... There cannot be a nation within a nation.

There is room enough in this country for one great free people; but there's not room enough, under the same flag and the same laws, for two or three angry, suspicious, obstructive "nationalities.

The moment we invite to our table men of another race ... we affirm that we acknowledge them as our fellow countrymen as they acknowledge we are theirs.

If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.

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 hear that melting-pot stuff a lot, and all I can say is that we haven't melted.

It's not even about black and white anymore, because so many people are from mixed backgrounds and mixed ethnicities, and it's just a great time to be able to pull all that together.

We should accept diversity and pluralism and learn to live in them, and learn how to grow in them, without losing our identity and compromising ourselves

A crusade for multiculturalism in the post-Soviet world is a prescription for perpetual war.

Value the perspective of different cultures and recognize the cultural mores that underpin groups and appreciate why these are valued and important.

Those who stay in America should be open to society without melting.

The melting pot was always a tension between difference and sameness.

The distinct society were asking for is not a society of privileged citizens. Is a society with a different culture, a society with a different legal system, a society with specific institutions.

From the beginning the Indian accepted the white man in Canada. We allowed him differences. We helped him overcome his weakness in trying to make his way in our environment. We taught him to know our world, to avoid the pitfalls and deadfalls, how to trap and hunt and fish, how to live in a strange environment. Is it too much to ask the white man to reciprocate?

Canada was conceived of by men of two different equally rich cultures, of two distinctive communities. Bilingualism and biculturalism are facts of Canadian life and should not be hidden or avoided. They're important, even vital to Canada as a nation, but they’re assets, not liabilities, positive factors, not negative ones.

America is woven of many strands. I would recognize them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many. This is not prophecy, but description.

Assimilation is what has made America great.

We honor cultural identity, but separatism is not allowed.

Assimilation was never the goal of the diverse ethnic groups in America. Inclusion without discomfort is now, and ever will be, the goal.

A [minority or ethnic] group is best defined as a dynamic whole based on inter-dependence rather than on similarity.