Cultural Humility Quotes

America does not presume to know what is best for everyone

I think it's part of being English, particularly if you are middle-class - you're always looking to be reminded that you are no good and you are always actually embarrassed about being successful.

Maybe it's a cultural thing, being Korean, but my first reflex has always been to exude humility - but it doesn't help you in acting. For acting, humility isn't the best thing. It'll weaken your work.

The foreigners come out here always to teach, whereas they had much better learn, for, in everything but wits and knowledge, the Arab is generally the better man of the two.

What's fascinating about the Australians is they have this quality that they are impervious to majesty. They're not awed.

Thinking that other people might be better than you is what makes you Canadian, not American.

I make no claim that Jewish culture is superior to other cultures or that the Jewish song is better than the song of my neighbor.

Canadians are the people who learned to live without the bold accents of the natural ego-trippers of other lands.

In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.

I think, as a white person, I do not want to speak for a black person.

I will not look at another's bowl intent on finding fault: a training to be observed.

We should not go to the [poor countries] and say: 'We come to ... teach you our science, to show you your errors.' ... We should go instead with an inquiring mind and a humble spirit to learn [from] these people.

Because no matter how much money we spend there [in Iraq], as long as the people there see this money as... as assistance that is unwelcome, as long as they continue to be humiliated in their own country by us... I mean, the future looked bleak, and the future after that was in fact very bleak.

I think an awful lot of the diplomatic problems that exist in the world come from people assuming that their society is the one with a purchase on truth.

I'm totally engaging in cultural stereotyping, no question about it. But I think it's OK because I'm doing it for a reason, for a good reason.

I think that people who live in cultures without quite so much privilege, opportunity or grandiosity have a little bit more respect for the workings of destiny, and the limitations that people can find themselves in through no fault of their own.

Kate Otto, like so many in her generation, is committed to being a good global citizen and doing her part to make the world a better place. Everyday Ambassador is a refreshing approach which encourages collaborative work with focus, empathy, humility and patience to better affect positive change in communities throughout the world.

Modest about our national pride - and inordinately proud of our national modesty.

When you travel you realize how small you are. You need to be humble. You can't be a big, brash American. You think you have problems. You leave the States and you see people have bigger problems than you, much worse problems than you. They have nothing to eat, they have no water, they have no shelter, they have a terrible government. So you realize we complain about the government, we complain about food, whatever it is, and go somewhere else and you think, "Now I realize," you say, "Why people want to come to America."

Africa doesn't leap on you immediately; it seeps slowly, and it's incredibly important to be respectful and humble there.

Europe must learn to live in and with the world, not to dominate it nor to assume it is superior or more virtuous.

When my kids correct my cultural missteps, I sometimes suspect that they're not embarrassed, they're gleeful.

If people can't acknowledge the wisdom of indigenous cultures, then that's their loss.

You know, you're living in a society where if you say something that you might think may be OK, when it's more sensitive to that particular culture. You have to be very, very careful.