Joseph Bruchac Quotes

I think of America not so much as a single country but as a constellation of groups out there competing for air time, energetically expressing themselves and luxuriating in their right to govern themselves. Freedom is that great vaunted word that's always applied to our country - and rightly so.

Let the Anglo- Saxon ask himself where he would have been if these races had not come? Let those who feel the inferiority of the non- Anglo-Saxon immigrant contemplate that region of the States which has remained the most distinctively 'American,' the South. Let him ask himself whether he would really like to see the foreign hordes Americanized into such an Americanization. Let him ask himself how superior this native civilization is to the great 'alien' states of Wisconsin and Minnesota, where Scandinavians, Poles, and Germans have self- consciously labored to preserve their traditional culture, while being outwardly and satisfactorily American. Let him ask himself how much wis more wisdom, intelligence, industry and social leadership has come out of these alien states than out of all the truly American ones. The South, in fact, while this vast Northern development has gone on, still remains an English colony, stagnant and complacent, having progressed culturally scarcely beyond the early Victorian era. It is culturally sterile because it has had no advantage of cross-fertilization like the Northern states.

I appreciate America as being the most artistic nation because of its diversity.

It's time to listen to the stories of the Indigenous; we are blessed as a country to look to the wisdom of a really old country.

And he [Louis Brandeis] talks to his young acolyte, Horace Kallen, who wrote this beautiful book called Cultural Pluralism, and he comes to believe that by being better Jews, or better members of our ethnic group, we can be better Americans, because America is like an orchestra in which identity is defined by the diversity of perspectives that we bring to the table.

Diversity is essential to happiness and in Utopia there is hardly any. This is a defect in all planned social systems.

I'm turned on by diversity. I'm turned on by things that are different. I like different animals, I like different ways of travel, and I like different people.

For a small island, the place is remarkably diverse. Writers tend to see things from their own points of view, looking in one direction very much.

It is very curious that the United States and Canada both assume that diversity means only race and ethnicity. They never assume it might mean more Nazis, or more Southern Baptists. That's diversity too, you know.

I think that the scienti?c way of looking at the world, and the humanistic way of looking at the world are complementary. There are important differences which should be preserved, and in trying to do away with those differences we would lose something the same way as if we tried to make all religions one religion or all races one race. There is a cultural diversity that's very valuable, and it's valuable to have different ways of looking at the world.

Diversity creates harmony, and harmony creates beauty, balance, bounty and peace in nature and society, in agriculture and culture, in science and in politics.

The most universal quality is diversity.

Elvis [Presley] had a stepstool, if you will, to success because he came from the dominant culture. They identified with him. Michael Jackson had to come further and go deeper into the pit of possibility of American democracy and of cultural expression.

The crossroads of trade are the meeting place of ideas, the attrition ground of rival customs and beliefs; diversities beget conflict, comparison, thought; superstitions cancel one another, and reason begins.

Civilizations should be measured by the degree of diversity attained and the degree of unity retained.

The last thing we want is a monolithic viewpoint where six people are standing before a president saying the same thing over and over again.

Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization. Wilderness was never a homogenous raw material. It was very diverse. The differences in the product are known as cultures. The rich diversity of the worlds cultures reflects a corresponding diversity. In the wilds that gave them birth.

No matter where you're from - you can be Native American, Italian, Jewish, Latino, African-American - whatever you are, we're all distant relatives.

Since the 1960s, we have seen the failure of the melting pot ideology. This ideology suggested that different historical, cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds could be subordinated to a larger ideology or social amalgam which is "America." This concept obviously did not work, because paradoxically America encourages a politics of contestation.

The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.

Americanization means the process of becoming an American. It means civic incorporation, becoming a part of the polity - becoming one of us. But that does not mean conformity. We are more than a melting pot, we are a kaleidoscope, where every turn of history refracts new light on the old promise.

The world is now multicultural the same way the world is round. It's not a selling point, it's not a 'quirky' feature, it's not a cynical marketing ploy, it's not an artistic statement, it's not even a plot device. It's a fact, like seedless grapes.

Other nations of different habits are not enemies: they are godsends. Men require of their neighbours something sufficiently akin to be understood, something sufficiently different to provoke attention, and something great enough to command admiration. We must not expect, however, all the virtues.

If we agree on everything, only one of us is necessary.