Pico Iyer Quotes

There are so many things admirable people do not understand.

I write a world where everyone is partly right.

I try to take people one at a time, with all the contradictions and compromises that most of us live with.

If I see one side of somebody, I want to see the other side.

Sometimes a song becomes rhetoric, but you have to really empathise. You also have to leave room for both sides of the argument: even if you're not telling the other side, you have to put that part in parentheses and make sure it's understood.

I got kids now... It gives you an empathetic feeling into other cultures and stuff.

I think people are intelligent, empathetic, multi-dimensional.

We must create a climate where people agree that human beings are more alike than unalike. The only way to do that is through education.

In Texas, you just learn just be nice to people and respect them, and respect where they're coming from. And understand people have different backgrounds and opinions, and there's nothing you could do about it. And that's what I've realized to shape, I guess, who I am.

We need more people who love humanity and the world, people who want to understand each other.

The most difficult task for anyone wandering through a foreign land with the hope of gaining some insight into it is the profound need to come to terms with the lives and thoughts of strangers.

Tolerance should really only be a passing attitude: it should lead to appreciation. To tolerate is to offend.

I don't want people to judge books by their cover, I want people to be open minded to the rest of the world.

The key is to learn to respect and honor the complications of other people's lives

I fear that we are living in a society, living in a world where forgiving people is becoming more and more difficult to do.

We [people] need to stop lumping folks together and start living together. Otherwise, we're going to kill each other off because you don't believe what I believe. That's crazy.

People care. Their hearts are open, but people don't know exactly what the Dreamers are going through, or what sanctuary cities are for, or what's positive about the American Muslim community. When you don't know a lot, you can't do a lot.

If I could have one wish, it would be for people to look at one another with open hearts and minds. Most of all, to look at each other with compassion. No matter who they are.

Even if someone doesn't look like you or you don't know people like this in your real life, you get to know them and you get to see their humanity and you get to empathize with them. Our hope is that through empathy that can spark change. We hope people start talking to each other and our show sparks conversation because we need to start talking to each other, not at each other.

How can there be peace without people understanding each other; and how can this be if they don't know each other?

The heart of wisdom is tolerance.

I think we must never, ever demonize one another. That's true not just black people to black people; that's human being to human being.

We can never truly understand the people we hate; we can never truly hate the people we understand.

I think my ideal man would speak many languages. He would speak Ibo and Yoruba and English and French and all of the others. He could speak with any person, even the soldiers, and if there was violence in their heart he could change it. He would not have to fight, do you see? Maybe he would not be very handsome, but he would be beautiful when he spoke. He would be very kind, even if you burned his food because you were laughing and talking with your girlfriends instead of watching the cooking. He would just say, 'Ah, never mind'.

You think the only people who are people, are the people who look and think like you. But if you walk the footsteps of a stranger, you'll learn things you never knew you never knew.