Charity Sunshine Tillemann-Dick Quotes

We may have our private opinions but why should they be a bar to the meeting of hearts?

You know, we have our differences, everybody does, honest, real differences, but I do believe strongly that we as neighbors are drawn together far more than we're driven apart.

Our uniqueness, our individuality, and our life experience molds us into fascinating beings. I hope we can embrace that. I pray we may all challenge ourselves to delve into the deepest resources of our hearts to cultivate an atmosphere of understanding, acceptance, tolerance, and compassion. We are all in this life together.

When you boil war down or all conflict down to two people, it's a great advert for humanity sometimes. People can find connections with each other, regardless of the bigger picture.

The goal of my shows, my interviews, my business, my philanthropy, all of it, whatever ventures I might pursue, would be to make clear that what unites us is ultimately far more redeeming and compelling than anything that separates me.

If you have not had direct firsthand experience of loving a category of person - a person of a different race, a profoundly religious person, things that are real stark differences between people - I think it is very hard to dare, or necessarily even want, to write fully from the inside of a person.

I would say get to know somebody who isn't exactly like you and doesn't come from the same background as you, educate yourself and then just keep showing up. Finding ways to show up for people and your voice will come out of that relationship and out of your pursuit to seeing people who aren't exactly like you.

We don't have to have the same truths or personal belief systems to love one another and get along.

And rather than judging and alienating others, I do think there's an opportunity that no one is taking, myself included, to actually understand why somebody is coming from a certain place.

Differences in experience, points of view and opinions aren't what pulls us apart. It's what pulls us together.

Be kind. It's worthwhile to make an effort to learn about other people and figure out what you might have in common with them. If you allow yourself to be somewhat curious - and if you get into the habit of doing that - it's the first step to being open minded and realizing that your points of view aren't totally opposite.

We are all trying to make it the best way we know how, so when we look at each other as individuals and nations, we should do so with compassion.

There's really not that much difference between you and I. And my name really doesn't matter. Hopefully, my heart and my spirit matters to you. Hopefully.

The only bond worth anything between human beings is their humanness.

I think, really, that the only way a person can open their heart to someone who is so much another is really by knowing them... whether that's in a classroom, or a soccer team, or a food pantry, or any of those things. I mean, we're kind of more alike than we are different.

You can be for someone without being against someone else.

If you can laugh with somebody and relate to somebody, it becomes harder to dehumanize them. I think that most of what we are constantly bombarded with in terms of media leads you to a creation of 'the Other' and a dehumanization of 'the Other,' and it's very much an us-versus-them conversation.

Sometimes it's a form of love just to talk to somebody that you have nothing in common with and still be fascinated by their presence.

As I lived on in America, I got to truly know the people of this country - so many kind and wonderful people, people of so many races - who helped me in so many ways. Who became my friends. I realized that underneath our different accents, habits, foods, religions, ways of thinking, we shared a common humanity.

There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met.

I want to believe that while we may sometimes read in the misguided pursuit of preserving our separation, there is a greater impulse inside us that compels us to read in search of the common heart.

Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It's the impetus for creating change.

I have tried to be more relatable, but I won't be relatable to everybody.

I am a human being; nothing human can be alien to me.

I can't wait until we get to the stage where we don't have to explain anymore.