Global Awareness Quotes

Ferguson shows the power of social media. This could have not been a story. Or it could have just been a local story. Or it could have been something that we saw only from a distance, through the usual filters. Instead, it gathered steam.

My generation those who were students in the late 60s was always, in the words of the Who, talking about our generation. That's what we thought of ourselves, as the most important thing since sliced bread. And the "we" that we meant was really the Western Europeans and American generation. And as I think back I suppose I have a sense of guilt on behalf of my generation, a sense that we were terribly provincial and didn't understand the really important stuff that was going on in Eastern Europe.

I had to be - I was in school for probably three or four years before I began taking courses in history and political science, and I just started to realize how big the world was. I mean, when I arrived in college, I didn't know anything.

Every Westerner is jubilating that the Berlin Wall has fallen. Something worst than the Berlin Wall is in Palestine; and nobody is talking about it.

Being in service and being involved in something that is greater than you is what makes a person complete and whole. The very first thing I ever did in terms of activism was for an anti-atom bomb rally.

I like living in Berkeley, but I know Berkeley's not the world.

I feel more in touch with the world when I'm filming.

As a nation we have the right to decide our own affairs, to mould our own future. This does not pose any danger to anybody. Our nation is fully aware of the responsibility for its own fate in the complicated situation of the contemporary world.

Find your own Calcutta. Find the sick, the suffering and the lonely right there where you are in your own homes and in your own families, in your workplaces and in your schools. You can find Calcutta all over the world, if you have the eyes to see. Everywhere, wherever you go, you find people who are unwanted, unloved, uncared for, just rejected by society completely forgotten, completely left alone.

Journalism is now not only reflecting what is happening, it is affecting what is happening. Governments all over the world watch CNN.

We recognize and accept our own deep involvement in the destiny of men everywhere.

I am 60, and I am as much an internationalist as when I was younger, when I was a Marxist-Leninist. Internationalism is one of the rare pieces of that heritage to which I remain loyal. That is Barack Obama's strength. A politician has finally understood that politics is not only about the closing of a mine in Ohio-it is also about the will to reach out, to embrace the world of today's young Americans. That way, young Americans may eventually reconcile with politics.

If an American is concerned only about his nation, he will not be concerned about the peoples of Asia, Africa, or South America. Is this not why nations engage in the madness of war without the slightest sense of penitence? Is this not why the murder of a citizen of your own nation is a crime, but the murder of citizens of another nation in war is an act of heroic virtue?

Think lightly of yourself and deeply of the world

Not enough people in this world, I think, carry a cosmic perspective with them. It could be life-changing.

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.

Twelve hundred people died last week in Darfur. Their lives are just as important is yours and mine. The Foley story is a big story but in the interest of pursuing a sex scandal we are ignoring life and death problems all over the planet.

In looking out upon the world, we forget that the world is looking at itself.

The time has come when the whole world must be concerned about me. From now on, American Christianity must follow me.

In the United States, and to a certain extent in Canada, there's very little interest in what happens outside their borders.

Nothing tends so much to enlarge the mind as traveling.

As we realize that more and more things have global impact, I think we're going to get people increasingly wanting to get away from a purely national interest.

I'm craving more soul, I'm craving more truth, I'm craving more socially - just people that are aware of what's going on in the world.

We cannot stay enveloped in our own reality and turn a blind eye to the plight of others.

When I was growing up, I didn't know there was a world outside of California.