Really, it’s pretty crazy to think about that and how far we’ve come in the past century. It wasn’t that long ago that the color of your skin determined where you could go to school and your gender determined if you were fit to vote. Yikes!
Our differences are what make us interesting. They are what make the world an interesting place to be. So, here’s a collection of quotes that we hope will inspire everybody to embrace themselves and one another.
Related: The Best Gay Pride Quotes
We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color. Maya Angelou
The things that we share in our world are far more valuable than those which divide us. Donald Williams
If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity. For, in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal. John F. Kennedy
We need to give each other the space to grow, to be ourselves, to exercise our diversity. We need to give each other space so that we may both give and receive such beautiful things as ideas, openness, dignity, joy, healing, and inclusion. Max de Pree
It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength. Maya Angelou
Who is wise? One who learns from all people. Unknown
I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort, where we overlap. Ani DiFranco
When I see you through my eyes, I think that we are different. When I see you through my heart, I know that we are the same. Doe Zantamata
If man is to survive, he will have learned to take a delight in the essential differences between men and between cultures. He will learn that differences in ideas and attitudes are a delight, part of life’s exciting variety, not something to fear. Gene Roddenberry
We may have different religions, different languages, different colored skin, but we all belong to one human race. Kofi Annan
I can imagine nothing more terrifying than an eternity filled with men who were all the same. The only thing which has made life bearable…has been the diversity of creatures on the surface of the globe. T.H. White
We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same. Anne Frank
There is the sky, which is all men’s together… Euripides
It is never too late to give up your prejudices. Henry David Thoreau
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. Martin Luther King
Seeking diversity automatically leads us to excellence, just as focusing on excellence inevitably leads us to diversity. William C. Steere
Diversity is not about how we differ. Diversity is about embracing one another’s uniqueness. Ola Joseph
Variety is the spice of life. Proverb
What a world this would be if we just build bridges instead of walls! Carlos Ramirez
Diversity is the one true thing we all have in common. Celebrate it every day. Unknown
“Never judge someone By the way he looks Or a book by the way it’s covered; For inside those tattered pages, There’s a lot to be discovered.” Stephen Cosgrove
We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams. Jimmy Carter
He who is different from me does not impoverish me – he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves – in Man… For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
A lot of different flowers make a bouquet. Muslim Origin
Difference is of the essence of humanity. John Hume
Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary. Cecil Beaton
We live now in a global village and we are in one single family. It’s our responsibility to bring friendship and love from all different places around the world and to live together in peace. Jackie Chan
Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without. William Sloane Coffin, Jr.
We are all different, which is great because we are all unique. Without diversity life would be very boring. Catherine Pulsifer
Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven. Yiddish Proverb
Cultural differences should not separate us from each other, but rather cultural diversity brings a collective strength that can benefit all of humanity. Robert Alan
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. Sun Tzu
We ought to think that we are one of the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all humanity. We cannot live without the others, without the tree. Pablo Casals
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of humanity. Martin Luther King
When spiderwebs unite, they can tie up a lion. Ethiopian Proverb
There is somebody smarter than any of us, and that is all of us. Michael Nolan
Wide differences of opinion in matters of religious, political, and social belief must exist if conscience and intellect alike are not to be stunted, if there is to be room for healthy growth. Theodore Roosevelt
As man draws nearer to the stars, why should he not also draw nearer to his neighbor? Lyndon B. Johnson
Recognize yourself in he and she who are not like you and me. Carlos Fuentes
The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession. Mark Twain
When you reduce life to black and white, you never see rainbows. Rachel Houston
At bottom every man knows well enough that he is a unique being, only once on this earth; and by no extraordinary chance will such a marvelously picturesque piece of diversity in unity as he is, ever be put together a second time. Friedrich Nietzsche
People may be said to resemble not the bricks of which a house is built, but the pieces of a picture puzzle, each differing in shape, but matching the rest, and thus bringing out the picture. Felix Adler
Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. Maya Angelou
The difference between you and him and him and me isn’t different at all: we’re all different. Jarod Kintz
Preservation of one’s own culture does not require contempt or disrespect for other cultures. Cesar Chavez
Minds are like parachutes — they only function when open. Sir James Dewar
United we stand, divided we fall. Aesop
Oppression involves a failure of the imagination: the failure to imagine the full humanity of other human beings. Margaret Atwood
We have a stake in one another … what binds us together is greater than what drives us apart, and … if enough people believe in the truth of that proposition and act on it, then we might not solve every problem, but we can get something meaningful done for the people with whom we share this Earth. Barack Obama
Never look down on anybody unless you’re helping him up. Jesse Jackson
We are all a part of the same thing. Unknown
