John Searle Quotes

Travel early and travel often. Live abroad, if you can. Understand cultures other than your own. As your understanding of other cultures increases, your understanding of yourself and your own culture will increase exponentially.

There will be no room, here, for the smug myopia which views American civilization as the final solution to all world problems; which recommends our institutions for universal adoption and turns away with contempt from the serious study of the institutions of peoples whose civilizations may seem to us to be materially less advanced.

I understand different cultures because I have travelled a lot.

I grew up with all cultures in the world.

I think it's good that you test the reality that surrounds you in your neighbourhood with the reality as it is in other parts of the world; you come up with a better judgment. I'm not meaning that literally you can only do that and not go to school at all but in terms of enrichment of a personality I think it's a fabulous thing.

I have never looked at foreign countries or gone there but with the purpose of getting to know the general human qualities that are spread all over the earth in very different forms, and then to find these qualities again in my own country and to recognize and to further them.

I deal with cultural issues whether they be in the Middle East, Far East, the Orient or the West. You broach questions in the context of their culture and then present Christian answers.

The two cultures of East and West are very different, and the priorities are very different. So when you understand that - if you are from this side or this side - when you understand that the other is different than you, and you respect these differences, you can build communication.

I had a hard time convincing students that they were going to North Africa to understand the North Africans, not to understand themselves.

I've never been in any country for more than four years, and I'm learning different languages all the time. It gives you a different attitude.

The biblical story is in dialogue with the other stories of its time. And if the Bible can be in dialogue with other cultures, why can't the people who are descendants of the Bible be in dialogue with other cultures?

If we can't understand the Afghan family, we can't understand Afghanistan.

I was a lot more cultured than the other kids in my high school. Because I traveled, I understood different cultures and had a more worldly view. Most of the people I went to high school with had never been outside of California.

The adequate study of culture, our own and those on the opposite side of the globe, can press on to fulfillment only as we learn today from the humanities as well as from the scientists.

In such diffused changes of culture two factors are necessary: contact and understanding.

Going to another country you're not in your house, you're with people you've never met before, and I think it's definitely a good growing experience.

We should never denigrate any other culture but rather help people to understand the relationship between their own culture and the dominant culture. When you understand another culture or language, it does not mean that you have to lose your own culture.

Many young Japanese were hearing for the first time the words of Native people from the West.

Being an American is such a rich environment, because there's so many people from other countries and cultures, and through that you're able to see other people's experiences.

We travel to learn; and I have never been in any country where they did not do something better than we do it, think some thoughts better than we think, catch some inspiration from heights above our own.

As an actor, you come in contact with so many different people and cultures. It makes you a more accepting person.

Foreign students add cultural value to their British peers, who need an international outlook.

When you learn about the teaching and the practice of another tradition, you always have a chance to understand your own teaching and practice.

I do think New York prepares you for the crossection of personalities and realities on display when you leave the country, and I'd live somewhere else if I had a reason or burning-the-the-point-of-discomfort desire to do so.

I try to study the background of the country I am in and what were my hits there, so I can at least give them some of what they want. It's like a wedding - give them something old, something new, something borrowed and definitely something blue!