Ban Ki-moon Quotes

Many people with different backgrounds, cultures, languages, and creeds combine to make a nation. But that nation is greater than the sum total of the individual skills and talents of its people. Something more grows out of their unity than can be calculated by adding the assets of individual contributions. That intangible additional quantity is often due to the differences which make the texture of the nation rich. Therefore, we must never wipe out or deride the differences amongst us-for where there is no difference, there is only indifference.

Racists are not born, they are raised. Isolation is the breeding ground for racism. The more you come to know the world around you and people different than you the less likely you will become an extremist. The Church needs to bring the world together.

The strength of the United States is not the gold at Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction that we have, but the sum total of the education and the character of our people.

Basically there is no difference between whites and blacks, browns and yellows. I decided to think no more of people as Northerners and Southerners.

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

This Diversity of origins requires an infinitely firm guide, an infinitely delicate touch to manage this heterogeneous society, whose complex composition becomes destroyed, divided and dissolved with the slightest alteration.

I think we shall have ceased to be a racially divided society only when we stop making a fuss about colour.

We tend to gravitate towards our tribes; the challenge is to understand the people of other tribes.

The awful lesson of history is that we too often ignore people, just because they're foreigners or different from us.

We, as a society, can't tolerate very much difference.

In order to survive, a plurality of true communities would require not egalitarianism and tolerance but knowledge, an understanding of the necessity of local differences, and respect. Respect, I think, always implies imagination - the ability to see one another, across our inevitable differences, as living souls.

People need to see that, far from being an obstacle, the world's diversity of languages, religions and traditions is a great treasure, affording us precious opportunities to recognize ourselves in others.

We need to be open minded to understand that there are lots of different levels of things going on and we shouldn't be so quick to judge - and certainly not to judge a whole race, a whole religion or a whole people - and a lot of that is going on.

In India we celebrate the commonality of major differences; we are a land of belonging rather than of blood.

Stop labeling people just because they're not like you.

We need to not be scared [of muslim], but understand each other. When you're around these people, you see they have much more in common than their differences.

People are always going to, you know, find something wrong with people who are not the exact same as them. That's just what it is. Black, white, short, tall, religions, whatever. People are bad.

We live in America, one of the good things what we have with all the people is we have dialogue.

When people are forced to interact to survive, their prejudices diminish.

I can't bear to hear a human being spoken of with contempt just because of his group identification...It's these respectable people here who create those hooligans out there.

Tolerance, inter-cultural dialogue and respect for diversity are more essential than ever in a world where peoples are becoming more and more closely interconnected.

I've told you before. You shouldn't judge people based on appearances and your preconceptions.

When people sit across from people - gay, straight, whatever - and they talk, they find out that people they may have been demonizing for their lifetime aren't the demons we've expected them to be.

I believe we should all know each other, we human carriers of so many pleasurable differences. To not know is to doubt, to shrink from, sidestep or destroy.

It's outrageous to me when I see people hate on someone because of their sexuality. I hate the intolerance. I hate the judgment. I hate it so much.