Ion Iliescu Quotes

If we are going to lead the world, we have to know where it is.

Most Americans are close to total ignorance about the world. They are ignorant. That is an unhealthy condition in a country in which foreign policy has to be endorsed by the people if it is to be pursued. And it makes it much more difficult for any president to pursue an intelligent policy that does justice to the complexity of the world.

I once knew a girl who didn't know where anywhere was in the world. Not a clue. I asked her if she knew where Africa was and she answered, 'Is it the orange one on a map?'

I'm sure that President [Lyndon] Johnson would never have pursued the war in Vietnam if he'd ever had a Fulbright [scholarship] to Japan, or say Bangkok, or had any feeling for what these people are like and why they acted the way they did. He was completely ignorant.

I believe that if we want our children to understand the world beyond their classroom, we must bring the world into their classroom.

I don't even know where Russia and Mexico are.

I am astonished each time I come to the U.S. by the ignorance of a high percentage of the population, which knows almost nothing about Latin America or about the world. It's quite blind and deaf to anything that may happen outside the frontiers of the U.S.

Knowledge is generally considered a good thing; so, presumably, knowing more about how the U.S. thinks and operates around the world is also good.

I wish I had known when I was in the White House what I know now about the Third World.

People think that there is a country there that these people are only around when they are on CNN. I don't think that's limited to Haiti.

Friends from the press, China needs to learn more about the world, and the world also needs to learn more about China. I hope you will continue to make more efforts and contributions to deepening the mutual understanding between China and the countries of the world.

We didn't know about the rest of the world. We just knew the pictures that we saw on TV, and it was so different that we wanted to try to imitate that, to a certain extent.

The fact is, with every friendship you make, and every bond of trust you establish, you are shaping the image of America projected to the rest of the world. That is so important. So when you study abroad, you're actually helping to make America stronger.

We, as Americans, have so much to learn here. We have a shockingly low level of global awareness and familiarity and little idea of how the world sees us. And those disturbing facts keep getting us into a lot of trouble.

The United States is very good at understanding itself, and very bad at understanding others.

Americans' scandalous incompetence in foreign languages also explains our dangerously inadequate understanding of world affairs.

Americans do not recognize the effect of American power in the world. … People all over the world ask, “Why can’t Americans see how American power affects us?”

If we were able to see people in other countries and learn about our differences, why would there be any misunderstandings? War would be a thing of the past.

We went in there [the Iraq War invasion] with a complete misunderstanding, regionally and inside Iraq, of what was going on. I don’t ever want that to happen again.

The people with the passports, the people who travel more, tend to be the most understanding. And it's ironic that the people who travel the least have the strongest opinions about the people they've never met.

I'm not disinterested in the rest of the world, but studies show the rest of the world is really freaking far away.

The more I come to know about the outside world's perception of China, the more I feel there are all sorts of misunderstandings, and to a certain extent, people do not get the full picture from the media. A lot of foreigners have few opportunities to visit China, and a lot of Chinese people do not have the chance to go to Europe or to the West.

I think people have to read more and learn more about what's going on internationally.

Most Americans, I think, know very little about East Asia or Southeast Asia. American businesspeople who have been here, they are very knowledgeable about this area, but the average American? No.

I wish more Americans would travel here. I always encourage my friends: 'Travel. See the Middle East. There's so much to see, so many good people.' And it's vice versa, and it helps stop problems of misunderstanding and stereotypes from happening.