Quotes About Diversity

Common looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them.

I have never seen to my knowledge a man, woman, or child who was in favor of producing a perfect equality, social and political, between negroes and white men.

The President last night had a dream. He was in a party of plain people and as it became known who he was they began to comment on his appearance. One of them said, "He is a common-looking man." The President replied, "Common-looking people are the best in the world: that is the reason the Lord makes so many of them."

Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God; and each invokes his aid against the other.... The prayers of both could not be answered--that of neither has been answered fully.

The Lord prefers common-looking people. That is why he makes so many of them.

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.

To the man who only has a hammer in the toolkit, every problem looks like a nail.

To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.

That's the funny thing about America--the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others. I've had my share of angels.

That's the funny thing about America - the blessed thing. As many people as there are to hold you back, there are angels whose humanity makes up for all the others." p 405

After just a week in the hospital, I felt I'd left America for another country. My world was a land of fluorescent lights where day and night were the same, and where more than half the citizens spoke Spanish. When they spoke English it wasn't what I expected in the land of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The bloodlines from the Mayflower hadn't trickled down to this zip code. Three

fused, or—imagine this—sharing one trunk with two necks?

The bloodlines from the Mayflower hadn't trickled down to this zip code.

If one could read fluently, confidently, in every known language, one would have no need of translators or translations; one could read Homer on Mondays, Akhmatova on Tuesdays, Swahili poets on Wednesdays, and so on.

The Arabs had the dry, musty smell of a grain cellar; the Asians contributed the ginger and garlic; and from the whites came the odor of a milk-soaked bib.

Whatever America needs, the world will supply. Cocaine? Colombia steps to the plate. Shortage of farmworkers, corn detasselers? Thank God for Mexico. Baseball players? Viva Dominica. Need more interns? India, Philippines zindabad!" I

There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus." They are far from being all one.

The first recorded voyage to Havana occurred in 1572. Others followed, and by the first decade of the seventeenth century, Africans would represent almost half of Havana's population.16

a clean honesty about our otherness that feels not like the moral but the story.

I cook a little bit. I make a Hungarian dish called chicken paprikash that's out of this world. I'll give a heads-up to all of your readers that it doesn't have to be between Thai and Mexican every night. Toss some Hungarian in every once in a while. You will not be sorry. Good, solid peasant food.

This can shake you up, this business of things almost but not quite being the same. A pharmacy is not quite a drugstore; a brasserie is not quite a coffee shop; a lunch is not quite a lunch.

Dissenting opinions are useful, even when they are wrong.

Minority viewpoints are important, not because they tend to prevail but because they stimulate divergent attention and thought, " finds Berkeley psychologist Charlan Nemeth, one of the world's leading experts on group decisions. "As a result, even when they are wrong they contribute to the detection of novel solutions and decisions that, on balance, are qualitatively better". Dissenting opinions are useful even when they're wrong.

The principle of optimal distinctiveness: we look for ways to fit in and stand out. A popular way to achieve optimal distinctiveness is to join a unique group.... Studies show that people identify more strongly with individuals and groups that share unique similarities. The more rare a group, value, interest, skill, or experience is, the more likely it is to facilitate a bond. And research indicates that people are happier in groups that provide optimal distinctiveness.