James Lee Burke Quotes

I don't go to different countries to criticise their political system and tell them what they should be doing - what do I know?

Tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them.

It is through accepting other people in our own countries that we shall come to respect our neighbours and be respected in our turn.

We meet aliens every day who have something to give us. They come in the form of people with different opinions.

What the United States does best is to understand itself. What it does worst is understand others.

Mostly I am sorry for the way I thought of other people. Like a good general, I had treated everyone who wasn't with me as against me.

Believing in each culture's right to be understood by the other party without any form of falseness or distortion is paramount.

Do not force others, including children, by any means whatsoever, to adopt your views, whether by authority, threat, money, propaganda, or even education. However, through compassionate dialogue, help others renounce fanaticism and narrowness.

I think that's important: to know 'the other,' as a means of coming to understanding.

I think art breaks down otherness.

When we represent all cultures with sensitivity and truth, we foster a society that supports all people.

Once you're looking for wisdom, you have to look at why things happen and why people behave how they do: you cannot, in all conscience, accept any form of prejudice.

It's always easier to dismiss other people than to go through the awkward and time consuming process of understanding them.

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

Neither despise nor oppose what thou dost not understand.

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.

Before you hate something you should try to understand it.

You should be able to voice your opinion and respect the voice of the other side. You should be willing to educate yourself and know what it is you're dealing with.

Those that despise people will never get the best out of others and themselves.

I think what's important is to give space to the range of human experience.

I say the same thing that I've said for decades now, which is: don't go over to Japan trying to change it, thinking that you know better. Go there trying to understand.

It's not so much what you learn about Mumbai, it's what you learn about yourself, really. It's a funny old hippie thing, but it's true as well. You find out a lot about yourself and your tolerance, and about your inclusiveness.

Anything that makes it easier to imagine trading places with someone else increases your moral consideration for that other person.

Change begins with understanding and understanding begins by identifying oneself with another person: in a word, empathy. The arts enable us to put ourselves in the minds, eyes, ears and hearts of other human beings.

Anyone can be tolerant of those who are tolerant.