Quotes About Diversity

While great hair and teeth are a good start to a political career, an ability to pretend at least half convincingly that you have an affinity to all key ethnic groups in your state is a definite plus.

We aren't rednecks. We're European. Big difference.

As to whether Marcos is gay: Marcos is gay in San Francisco, black in South Africa, an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal,… a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm, a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.

In the world we want, everyone fits. We want a world in which many worlds fit.

Being open to change, asking questions, being rebellious, being creative—that is how a civilization grows and becomes like a huge banyan tree—giving shelter and shade to many people of many regions, languages, religions and gender.

The anthropologist who asserts absolute confidence in the sex, age, stature and ancestry of a skeleton is a dangerous and inexperienced scientist who doesn't understand human variability.

Fiction, nonfiction. Biography, memoir. Science, psychology. History. Everything had its place. That was the beauty of libraries. No surprise except when someone screwed up, or was lazy, or was a thief.

Vivir en un mundo donde las respuestas a las preguntas pueden ser tantas y tan buenas es lo que me hace salir de la cama y calzarme las botas cada mañana.

And for two weeks I was banged up with a Hobbit who only spoke Elvish," said Jess.

It's the ordinary people who will have to learn to accept us.

And at the moment of contact, they do not know if the hand that is reaching for theirs belongs to a Hindu or Muslim or Christian or Brahmin or untouchable or whether you were born in this city or arrived only this morning or whether you live in Malabar Hill or New York or Jogeshwari; whether you're from Bombay or Mumbai or New York. All they know is that you're trying to get to the city of gold, and that's enough. Come on board, they say. We'll adjust.

A city like Bombay, like New York, that is a recent creation on the planet and does not have a substantial indigenous population, is full of restless people. Those who have come here have not been at ease somewhere else. And unlike others who may have been equally uncomfortable wherever they came from, these people got up and moved. As I have discovered, having once moved, it is difficult to stop moving.

Anybody in the world can come to India and find home.

For in this country, which of all civilizations has been devoted to the most exquisite consideration of the interior life—of the form, structure, and purpose of the self—we are individually multiple, severally alone.

The entire country was like a linguistic and cultural Galápagos.

The skilful employer of men will employ the wise man, the brave man, the covetous man, and the stupid man.

There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard. There are not more than five primary colours, yet in combination they produce more hues than can ever been seen. There are not more than five cardinal tastes, yet combinations of them yield more flavours than can ever be tasted.

When I first moved to Minnesota, most folks didn't say they were white. They proclaimed their heritage. Germans, Swedes, Norwegians, French. Strange, I thought. When did they become white? Maybe winter changes people into colors. I waited to see.

Before moving to America, I did not see the world through a "Black" lens...We had doctors, teachers, wealthy men. Indeed, we had successful men of all stripes. We did not have Black doctors, Black businessmen, or any so-called role models. We had people doing things we children knew we could just as easily do when we grew up.

The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.

civilization able to produce a Mahavira, a Mirabai, a Malik Ambar, a Periyar, a Muhammad Iqbal and a Mohandas Gandhi is a place open to radical experiments with self-definition. It

Remember this as long as you live: Whenever you meet up with anyone who is trying to cause trouble between people, anyone who tries to tell you that a man can't be a good American because he's a Catholic, or a Jew, a Protestant, or whatever, you can be pretty sure he's a rotten American himself. Not only a rotten American, but a rotten human being. Don't ever forget that.

entailing difficult technical philosophical terms are so different from those of European thought, that they can hardly ever be accurately translated.

Both bonobos and common chimps are as close to humans as foxes are to dogs. I don't know about you, but that's closer than I feel to some of my human relatives.