diversity

Pick a leader who is strong and confident, yet humble. Intelligent, but not sly. A leader who encourages diversity, not racism. One who understands the needs of the farmer, the teacher, the welder, the doctor, and the environmentalist -- not only the banker, the oil tycoon, the weapons developer, or the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyist.

Our categories are important. We cannot organize a social life, a political movement, or our individual identities and desires without them. The fact that categories invariably leak and can never contain all the relevant "existing things" does not render them useless, only limited. Categories like __oman,_ __utch,_ __esbian,_ or __ranssexual_ are all imperfect, historical, temporary, and arbitrary. We use them, and they use us. We use them to construct meaningful lives, and they mold us into historically specific forms of personhood. Instead of fighting for immaculate classifications and impenetrable boundaries, let us strive to maintain a community that understands diversity as a gift, sees anomalies as precious, and treats all basic principles with a hefty dose of skepticism.

How can you govern a country which has 246 varieties of cheese?

To work best democracy needs a diversity of thoughts, ideas and expression. This is only possible with freedom and civility.

Because freedom and liberty and equality are as vital as breath, we only notice their absence when we are left gasping when the colors of diversity and individual liberty are drained from the world around us.

With the Internet, we can choose the very communities we want to be a part of.

We are the offspring of history, and must establish our own paths in this most diverse and interesting of conceivable universes__ne indifferent to our suffering, and therefore offering us maximum freedom to thrive, or to fail, in our own chosen way.

It may sound like I am making too much out of all this, but the only way you can allow a kid to truly dream is if you expand their idea of what is currently possible. A kid who has nothing, sees nothing, and is taught nothing can only dream of breakfast. They can only hope to get to the next moment successfully. I want more than that for my kids...just like my mom wanted more than that for me. And I want them to want more than that too.

Diversity is an aspect of human existence that cannot be eradicated by terrorism or war or self-consuming hatred. It can only be conquered by recognizing and claiming the wealth of values it represents for all.

We are living in an era in which billions of people are grappling to promote communication, tolerance, and understanding over the more destructive forces of war, terrorism, and political chaos that have characterized the beginning of the 21st Century.

There's so many different worlds, so many different suns. And we have just one world, but we live in different ones.

The only difference between you and the person you admire is their perspective on life.

The different sacred gifts serve a divine purpose.

Our differences are the real treasures.

Talking to people who are different from us can be radically transformative. It's the antidote to fear.

I have a self-made quote: Celebrate diversity, practice acceptance and may we all choose peaceful options to conflict.

The glorification of hatred is predicated on a foundation of fear-induced ignorance venomous to haters and those they believe they hate.

We are among the first peoples in human history who do not broadly inherit religious identity as a given, a matter of kin and tribe, like hair color and hometown. But the very fluidity of this__he possibility of choice that arises, the ability to craft and discern one__ own spiritual bearings__s not leading to the decline of spiritual life but its revival. It is changing us, collectively. It is even renewing religion, and our cultural encounter with religion, in counterintuitive ways. I meet scientists who speak of a religiosity without spirituality__ reverence for the place of ritual in human life, and the value of human community, without a need for something supernaturally transcendent. There is something called the New Humanism, which is in dialogue about moral imagination and ethical passions across boundaries of belief and nonbelief. But I apprehend_ with a knowledge that is as much visceral as cognitive_ that God is love. That somehow the possibility of care that can transform us_ love muscular and resilient_ is an echo of a reality behind reality, embedded in the creative force that gives us life.