Michael Lerner Quotes

Our country is the world — our countrymen are all mankind

Know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity...[For] we are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth.

You can't choose up sides on a round world.

We desire the good of the world and the happiness of the nations that the bonds of affection and unity between the sons of men should be strengthened... what harm is there in this?... these fruitless strifes, these ruinous wars shall pass away, and the 'Most Great Peace' shall come.

It is not easy to see how the more extreme forms of nationalism can long survive when men have seen the Earth in its true perspective as a single small globe against the stars.

Above all nations is humanity.

One of the main points about travelling is to develop in us a feeling of solidarity, of that oneness without which no better world is possible.

I've always thought that a lot of the problems in the world would be solved if a spaceship did arrive, then anyone with one head and two arms and two legs would be your brother! It wouldn't matter where they were from or what they believed or anything. It might be good for us.

We are on the cusp of this time where I can say, "I speak as a citizen of the world" without others saying, "God, what a nut.

We recognize and accept our own deep involvement in the destiny of men everywhere.

The question really isn't whether I'm American, Russian, Iranian, Azerbaijani, or anything else. I've been shaped by all these people and cultures and I feel quite comfortable among all of them

I would like to express the thoughts of a man who, having finally penetrated the partitions and ceilings of little countries, little coteries, little sects, rises above all these categories and finds himself a child and citizen of the Earth.

My company, East West, was founded on the premise that people need to group together and not be xenophobic, parochial, or provincial.

We cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself.

I wish more of us could understand that our increasing isolation, no matter how much it seems to express pride and self-affirmation, is not the answer to our problems. Rather, the answer is a revival of our ancient commitment to God, who rules over all the peoples of the world and exalts no one over any other, and to the moral and spiritual values which were once legendary in America. We must reach out our hand in friendship both to those who would befriend us and those who would be our enemy.

We are the world.

As we have seen, the wireless and the airplane have made the world so small and nations so dependent on each other that the only alternative to war is the United States of the World.

We pray that henceforth not only Japan but all mankind may know the blessings of harmony and progress.

As an American, and especially as a Christian, I am convinced that a love for our own people is not a bad thing, but love doesn't stop at borders. Love is infinitely boundless and all about holy trespassing and offensive friendships.

The ancient Jewish people gave the world the vision of eternal peace, of universal disarmament, of abolishing the teaching and learning of war.

In saving Tibet, you save the possibility that we are all brothers, sisters.

The philosophical idea that there are no more distances, that we are all just one world, that we are all brothers, is such a drag! I like differences.

We are convinced of the fundamental unity of the human family.

I have a different idea of a universal. It is of a universal rich with all that is particular, rich with all the particulars there are, the deepening of each particular, the coexistence of them all.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.