Ethnic Background Quotes

Words evolve, perhaps more rapidly and tellingly than do their users, and the change in meanings reflects a society often more accurately than do the works of many historians. In he years preceding the first collapse of NorAm, the change in the meaning of one word predicted the failure of that society more immediately and accurately than did all the analysts, social scientists, and historians. That critical word? 'Discrimination.' We know it now as a term meaning 'unfounded bias against a person, group, or culture on the basis of racial, gender, or ethnic background.' Prejudice, if you will.

The previous meaning of this word was: 'to draw a clear distinction between good and evil, to differentiate, to recognize as different.' Moreover, the connotations once associated with discrimination were favorable. A person of discrimination was one of taste and good judgment. With the change of the meaning into a negative term of bias, the English language was left without a single-word term for the act of choosing between alternatives wisely, and more importantly, left with a subterranean negative connotation for those who attempted to make such choices.

In hindsight, the change in meaning clearly reflected and foreshadowed the disaster to come. Individuals and institutions abhorred making real choices. At one point more than three-quarters of the youthful population entered institutions of higher learning. Credentials, often paper ones, replaced meaning judgment ~ L.E. Modesitt Jr.

Down through the ages man's heart has remained unchanged. Whatever the color of his skin, whatever his cultural or ethnic background, he needs the Gospel of Christ. ~ Billy Graham

Even if you don't state your ethnic background anywhere on LinkedIn or whether you are married with children, a scan of your photos and other people's photos featuring you will make it far easier to deduce. ~ Jan Chipchase

Be less about protecting any type of identity affiliated to a country or even ethnic background. Be more about the fact that we're here for a short time and Heaven is going to be a rainbow of people, multiculture, every generation. ~ Max Lucado

I do believe that one way to bring cultures together, to develop trust between people and countries and religions, is through education. And through music and art and basketball and activities and joys that people share worldwide, regardless of ethnic background or religious orientation. ~ Steve Kerr

When an office-holder facing a multi-count indictment says that he has decided to spend more time with his family, the proper response is a horse-laugh. When an accused politician explains that a charge of corruption is 'really' an attack on his or her race, religion, ethnic background or gender, the odds that something felonious happened jumps. ~ Jeff Greenfield

The Universe has expanded, but it originates from the same source. We were made from the same energy that created the stars. You are not your name, your resume, your accomplishments, or your ethnic background; you are a part of the whole Universe, just as a wave is a part of the ocean. You breathe without effort, your cells function independently without your control, your mind functions naturally, you are more than just an identity; you are the Universe. When you understand this intuitively and not just intellectually, you will inevitably feel an overwhelming sense of oneness, a realization that you are not a separate entity, that you are an integral piece of your environment. This realization is the mental state that is properly associated with the term enlightenment. ~ Joseph P. Kauffman

I think it is a sin to look at another person as inferior to yourself because of race or because of ethnic background, and I think the greatest thing to do is to pray that God will give you love for them, and I do. ~ Billy Graham

There are great slender models, great tall models, Amazonian models, great busty models - my point is models of all shapes and sizes, age, ethnic background should be embraced and celebrated. ~ Erin O'Connor

I think all races are represented in America much more than in many other places, but it's also nice to remind people about that ethnic mix. I would like to see more black models and women from different ethnic backgrounds, but I also think that when you are casting, you just choose the most beautiful girl you can find. ~ Diane Von Furstenberg

If you had to eat another human to survive, do you think they'd taste like their ethnic background? ~ Daniel Tosh

SEAL training was a great equalizer. Nothing mattered but your will to succeed. Not your color, not your ethnic background, not your education and not your social status. ~ William H. McRaven

So much was lost - names, faces, ages, ethnic identities - that African Americans must do what no other ethnic group writ large must do: take a completely shattered vessel and piece it together, knowing that some pieces will never be recovered. This is not quite as harrowing or hopeless as it might sound I liken it to the Japanese art of kintsugi, repairing broken vessels using gold. The scars of the object are not concealed, but highlighted and embraced, thus giving them their own dignity and power. The brokenness and its subsequent repair are a recognized part of the story of the journey of the vessel, not to be obscured, and change, transition, and transformation are seen as important as honoring the original structure and its traditional meaning and beauty. ~ Michael W. Twitty

They could address everything else and still not solve the problem. He was always proud of her when she said that. A liberal arts background was a hard thing to overcome, but she was doing great. ~ James S.A. Corey

To be successful, you really have to put your ego in the background and try to be diplomatic to achieve what you want to achieve. ~ Ken Adam

I like how Dallas Willard put it: "We don't believe something by merely saying we believe it," he said, "or even when we believe that we believe it. We believe something when we act as if it were true." So perhaps a better question than "Do I believe in miracles?" is "Am I acting like I do?" Am I including the people who are typically excluded? Am I feeding the hungry and caring for the sick? Am I holding the hands of the homeless and offering help to addicts? Am I working to break down religious and political barriers that marginalize ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities and people with disabilities? Am I behaving as though life is more than a meaningless, chaotic mess, that there is some order in the storm? ~ Rachel Held Evans

I am a twentiethcentury individual. I am working myself up to a point where I can exist beyond guilt, beyond blood, beyond the ridiculous past. Thank goodness for America. In this country there's a chance to accomplish such a thing. I want to look straight ahead. I want to see things clearly. I'd like to become singleminded and straightforward in the most literal sense of those words. History is no more accurate than prophecy. I reject the wrathful God of the Hebrews. I reject the Christian God of love and money, although I don't reject love itself or money itself. I reject heritage, background, tradition and birthright. These things merely slow the progress of the human race. They result in war and insanity, war and insanity, war and insanity. ~ Don DeLillo

I welcome anyone that wants to come into the WWE and try it, because, I was the type of person that was not welcome with open arms. People didn't want me to come in because I was from a Reality background. But I'm the first person that says, bring anybody in. ~ The Miz

Cameras are dangerous. With no waiting period or background check, any whack-job could just stroll into a Wal-Mart and walk out with a semi-automatic. Now, for years I've been pressing for stricter regulations on cameras, especially around our elected officials. Too many political lives have been cut short by some crazed shooter. ~ Stephen Colbert

Women. No offense. But she doesn't even realize what she just said. These are her accomplishments. Challenges she's lived through. Shithead was just standing along for the ride. In the background. Like wallpaper. You can change the color of the walls anytime, and it might look different, but the room's still the same. ~ Emma Chase

Presently Arnaud folded the paper napkin, in the same careful way he always folded a table napkin, and said I ought to follow Chantal's suggestion and get a job in teaching a nursery school. (So Maman had mentioned that to Mme. Pons, too) I should teach until I had enough working time behind me to claim a pension. It would be good for me in my old age to have an income of my own. Anything could happen. He could be killed in a train crash or called up for a war. My father could easily be ruined in a lawsuit and die covered with debts. There were advantages to teaching, such as long holidays and reduced train fares.
"How long would it take?" I said. "Before I could stop teaching and get my pension."
"Thirty-five years," said Arnaud. "I'll ask my mother. She had no training, either, but she taught private classes. All you need is a decent background and some recommendations. ~ Mavis Gallant

Hey, Dad, if I needed to check someone's background, would you be able to do that for me?"
"That's a little unethical, Liv." John smoothed his mustache. "Is this about a boy?"
Livia cringed. "Yeah, it is."
"Then absolutely. I'd be happy to. ~ Debra Anastasia

The clerical work is par for the course. "Keep on file in numerical order" means throw in wastebasket. You'll soon learn the language. "Let it be a challenge to you" means you're stuck with it; "interpersonal relationships" is a fight between kids; "ancillary civic agencies for supportive discipline" means call the cops; "Language Arts Dept." is the English office; "literature based on child's reading level and experiential background" means that's all they've got in the Book Room; "non-academic-minded" is a delinquent; and "It has come to my attention" means you're in trouble. ~ Bel Kaufman

Kids don't think about their folks nearly as much as everybody imagines. Parents are just there, like background music at the mall. ~ Ron Koertge

Remember that in life. Listen with
both ears. You listen to one story. You listen to the other one.Someplace in the middle is the truth. It's up to your own brains and
knowledge to determine what to do, if you know the background of the people
who are involved. Don't ever react to anything in life - legitimate or
illegitimate - by listening just to one side. You got plenty of time to
react. Listen to both sides. Think about someplace in the middle and make
up your mind. Then react. Then you do what you want. ~ Peter Maas

Death is the night sky, the background against which the fleeting fireworks of life are displayed, an empty stage upon which the drama of life is played. ~ James Rozoff

Let your life be a song. Let music be the background of whatever human things you will do for this blazing, spinning planet, and never let go of the good, never let go of the kindness. ~ Logan Keys

To most people, Hans Hubermann was barely visible. An un-special person. Certainly, his painting skills were excellent. His musical ability was better than average. Somehow, though, and I'm sure you've met people like this, he was able to appear as merely part of the background, even if he was standing at the front of a line. He was always just there. Not noticeable. ~ Markus Zusak

So many television marriages -
that playing out of lives against a
background of the tube.
Instead of two lives filing the room,
There are their two lives and the eleven o'clock news with
Constant commercial interruption.
Instead of what you say and what I say.
You don't laugh with me;
I don't laugh with you.
All the wit comes pouring out of the tube.
And we laugh at it together.
The more we avoid talking
the more passive the relationship becomes.
Television permits us to walk through life
with minor speaking parts.
And the more we fail to speak,
the more difficult speaking becomes ~ Lois Wyse

This is how the great post-partisan, post-racial, New Politics presidency ends-not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a desperate election-eve plea for ethnic retribution. ~ Charles Krauthammer

The office of President is a great one; to every true American it seems the greatest on earth. And to me, as I was engaged in weaving a background of music for the pageantry of it, there came a deeper realization of the effect of that office on the man. ~ John Philip Sousa

Nationalist conflicts and ethnic-racial tensions were greatly intensified by the territorial settlement of Europe that followed the First World War. The architects of the Versailles Treaty in 1919, however good their intentions, faced insuperable problems in attempting to satisfy the territorial demands of the new countries formed out of the wreckage of the old empires. Ethnic minorities formed sizeable parts of most of the new states in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe, offering a potential base for serious political disturbance. Almost ~ Ian Kershaw

Now, though, the command he gave made two vaguenesses congeal into one threat, distant, amorphous, but unmistakable, as when, against a background of city dawn and back alley clatter, one click and one clack come together into the telltale click-clack of a ready gun, and echo won't tell you whether the enemy's perch is left, or right, or high, or low, only that it is near. ~ Ada Palmer

My background is advertising: I moved to New York from London in 1998 to start up the U.S. office of ad agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty. ~ Cindy Gallop

I think I'm a vocal genius, not a musical genius. I like background vocals. I consider myself a voice, not a singer. A voice is a sound, and singing is what you do with that sound. ~ Brian Wilson

I'm ashamed to say that I'm from a very privileged background. ~ David Lagercrantz

Teachers who pander to minority students by turning their courses into rap sessions and ethnic navel-gazing exercises capture their interest and allegiance. ~ Thomas Sowell

I made a living being a background singer for years. ~ Katey Sagal

Also, because people like to multitask, in a way if you've got a bit of music on in the background and the lyrical content is making you want to listen to it, then that would probably put you off the texting you wanted to do. I think people like things that just make that right kind of noise, but leave your brain free to do something else. ~ Jarvis Cocker

There was an electric buzzing sound that was constantly on, acting as background music like a million cicadas in the forest. A constant white noise. ~ Missy Lyons

Mum had regular mental tests with her specialist, but because of her academic background, she became brilliant at manipulating them. ~ Kevin Whately

When you see how fragile and delicate life can be, all else fades into the background. ~ Jenna Morasca

It's good for me to pull away from something that is just done for effect, which was basically Sue White in 'Green Wing.' In that, it was very much: if in trouble, gurn, or fall down. There was no character background to Sue. You didn't know who she was. She didn't have any toehold in any kind of reality. ~ Michelle Gomez

I watch one news channel until my soul can't take it anymore. It's the background of my life. ~ John Oliver

Usually, I'll be auditioning for the third lead, and there will be Latina actresses, Indian actresses, African American actresses because it will be like, 'Let's check off this box. We have our lead white girl, and we need an ethnic slot.' ~ Constance Wu

Islam from the beginning was primarily predisposed toward one particular people. There is very little doubt that in its inception, Islam was a geopolitical reaction to the other groups around them. Even those sympathetic to Islam, such as Ali Dashti, the noted Iranian journalist, comment that the greatest miracle in Islam is that it gave Mohammed's followers an identity, something they had lacked as various warring tribal groups. The very language of the Koran is restrictive. To claim that Mohammed's only miracle was the Koran and then to state that one cannot recognize the miracle unless one knows the language makes a miracle anything but universal. How can a "prophet to the world" be so narrowly restricted to a language group? The Koran, it is said, is only inspired in the original language - no other language can bear the miracle. The narrowness of its ethnic appeal cannot be ignored. ~ Ravi Zacharias

Sometimes they ask if you want to hook up your iPod for background music. Do not do this. It's a trap. They'll put it on shuffle, and no matter how much Beastie Boys or Velvet Underground you have on there, the following four tracks will play in a row; "We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover" from Annie, "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, "That's What Friends Are For, Various Artists, and "We'd Like to Thank You Herbert Hoover" from Annie. ~ Tina Fey

To be quite accurate, human nature is simply what it is; it has its dark and its light sides. The sum of all colours is grey - light on a dark background or dark on light. ~ C. G. Jung

I think we did our first session in 1958. There were no black background singers - there were only white singers. They weren't even called background singers; they were just called singers. I don't know who gave us the name 'background singers,' but I think that came about when The Blossoms started doing background. ~ Darlene Love

It's best to keep America just like that, always in the background, a sort of picture post card which you look at in a weak moment. Like that, you imagine it's always there waiting for you, unchanged, unspoiled, a big patriotic open space with cows and sheep and tenderhearted men ready to bugger everything in sight, man, woman or beast. It doesn't exist, America. It's a name you give to an abstract idea ... ~ Henry Miller

I couldn't believe it! I mean, I'd always dreamed of acting on the screen - my previous background was all theater - but I wasn't sure if the opportunity would ever present itself. Not only was this acting for the screen, this was acting in 'The Hunger Games!' I knew that I had to give this audition my all. ~ Jacqueline Emerson

Informal relationships are not mere minor interstitial supplements to the major institutions of society. These informal relationships not only include important decision-making processes, such as the family, but also produce much of the background social capital without which the other major institutions of society could not function nearly as effectively as they do. ~ Thomas Sowell

They devote themselves every day to what Jesus taught: to prayer, to fellowship, to breaking of bread together. They shared what they owned; they served each other's needs. Ethnic barriers came down as they became known by the way they loved each other. It's a different community, devoted to a Jesus way of life with God. ~ John Ortberg