* The indigenous understanding has its basis of spirituality in a recognition of the interconnectedness and interdependence of all living things, a holistic and balanced view of the world. All things are bound together. All things connect. What happens to the Earth happens to the children of the earth. Humankind has not woven the web of life; we are but one thread. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.
-- Rebecca Adamson

It's crucial to understand that as a society, we can reorganize. We can reorganize socially, politically, and economically, and we can reorganize according to our values.
-- Rebecca Adamson

In a society where all are related, simple decisions require the approval of nearly everyone in that society. It is society as a whole, not merely a part of it, that must survive. This is the indigenous understanding. It is the understanding in a global sense. We are all indigenous people on this planet, and we have to reorganize to get along. -- Rebecca Adamson

In this past century, a global interfaith movement has been growing, helping to raise consciousness about the need for tolerance and understanding between different cultures and religions. This movement has helped highlight the common goals that most religions share, such as the Golden Rule, which is at the heart of nearly all religious traditions. At the same time, many throughout the world are discovering that 'spirituality' -- a deep connection to a greater purpose for humanity -- is an important driving force in their lives, even if they aren't religious. -- Robert Alan Silverstein

"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

In the globalized world that is ours, maybe we are moving towards a global village, but that global village brings in a lot of different people, a lot of different ideas, lots of different backgrounds, lots of different aspirations. I think respect and understanding will help that village function better than it does today.
-- Lakhdar Brahimi

* Be modest, be respectful of others, try to understand.
-- Lakhdar Brahimi

* More than ever before, there is a global understanding that long-term social, economic, and environmental development would be impossible without healthy families, communities, and countries.
-- Gro Brundtland

* Through mutual understanding, sincerity and goodwill, and with great wisdom and broad views, the leaders on both sides should jointly initiate new opportunities for peace, stability, cooperation and mutual benefit.
-- Chen Shui-bian

You have to take risks.
We will only understand the miracle of life fully
when we allow the unexpected to happen.
-- Paulo Coelho

* We all have families who are longing for peace in the world and an end to the suffering caused by poverty, disease, and hunger. Untold numbers of our friends, our neighbors, our parents, and our children, are hoping that there is more understanding, more generosity, more genuine friendship, and more caring among people of all faiths and cultures. -- John Conyers

* A day of peace and sharing can lead to greater understanding and cooperation among political parties, faith groups, and people of different races and economic class. -- John Conyers

* "What's so funny about peace, love and understanding?"
~ Elvis Costello

The problems we face today, violent conflicts, destruction of nature, poverty, hunger and so on, are human-created problems which can be resolved through human effort, understanding and the development of a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share.
-- 14th Dalai Lama

* "...don't criticize what you can't understand, your sons and your daughters are beyond your command."
-- Bob Dylan

* A hero is someone who understands the responsibility that comes with his freedom.
-- Bob Dylan

* We are all together in this, we are all together in this single living ecosystem called planet earth. As we learn how we fit into the greater scheme of things, and begin to understand how the system works, we can plan ahead, we can use the resources responsibly, to show some respect for this inheritance that goes back 4.6 billion years.
~ Sylvia Earle

Peace cannot be kept by force;
it can only be achieved through understanding.
-- Albert Einstein

* Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved through understanding.
-- Albert Einstein

More and more individuals worldwide are realizing that war does not solve conflict, nor resolve long-standing cycles of violence. As more of those who have this understanding communicate it to policy-makers and more particularly, start implementing it in their own lives and localities, change will start to happen. -- Scilla Elworthy

There are astonishing stories of heroism not only in preventing bloodshed, but in building understanding which lasts. -- Scilla Elworthy

Nonviolence, therefore, can be described as an honest and diligent pursuit of truth. It could also mean the search for the meaning of life or the purpose of life, questions that have tormented humankind for centuries. The fact that we have not been able to find satisfactory answers to these questions does not mean there is no answer. It only means we have not searched with any degree of honesty. The search has to be both external and internal. We seek to ignore this crucial search because the sacrifices it demands are revolutionary. It means moving away from greed, selfishness, possessiveness, and dominance to love, compassion, understanding, and respect.
-- Arun Gandhi

* Courtesy towards opponents and eagerness to understand their view-point is the ABC of non-violence.
~ Mohandas Gandhi

* "Before we can forgive one another, we have to understand one another."
-- Emma Goldman

* Let us develop respect for all living things. Let us try to replace violence and intolerance with understanding and compassion. And love.
~ Jane Goodall

"I just have this absolute belief that humans are moving away from cruelty and destruction towards a time when we can truly live in harmony with nature. When we understand that there is a spiritual power around us from which we can draw strength. That is where I believe human destiny ultimately is taking us. I just hope we have time."
~ Jane Goodall

“Self-observation brings man to the realization of the necessity of self-change. And in observing himself a man notices that self-observation itself brings about certain changes in his inner processes. He begins to understand that self-observation is an instrument of self-change, a means of awakening.”
-- George Gurdjieff

Without self knowledge, without understanding the working and functions of his machine, man cannot be free, he cannot govern himself and he will always remain a slave.
-- George Gurdjieff

Though we all have the fear and the seeds of anger within us, we must learn not to water those seeds and instead nourish our positive qualities – those of compassion, understanding, and loving kindness.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh

* To reconcile conflicting parties, we must have the ability to understand the suffering of both sides.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh

* "The future belongs to those who understand that doing more with less is compassionate, prosperous, and enduring, and thus more intelligent, even competitive."
~ Paul Hawken

* "To me, love, spirituality and life are all the same thing. To me they're all about honoring the circle, and they're just different ways of defining the same understanding. Our society as a whole, because we have placed our love for money above our love for life, has devalued the sacred and devalued love."
-- Julia Butterfly Hill

When a culture has a story everyone understands, it gives direction and meaning to that culture. When people no longer believe the story, the culture disintegrates. -- Earl Hubbard & Barbara Marx Hubbard

By understanding evolution as the expression of universal intelligence, now becoming conscious of itself within us, and as us, we overcome the dichotomy between current evolutionists who see no design in evolution, and creationists who often propose and anthropomorphic God as creator.
-- Barbara Marx Hubbard

We need to accept that we won't always make the right decisions, that we'll screw up royally sometimes - understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it's part of success.
-- Arianna Huffington

* Our cultural strength has always been derived from our diversity of understanding and experience.
-- Yo-Yo Ma

* “When we enlarge our view of the world, we deepen our understanding of our own lives."
-- Yo-Yo Ma

* If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
-- Nelson Mandela

No matter how hostile the environment in which we are working is, we must never cease to insist that development is about people and not about objects. That the aim of development must be neither producerism not consumerism, but the satisfaction of fundamental human needs, which are not only needs of humanity, but needs of being as well. We will never deny that subsistence is a fundamental human need which must be satisfied through adequate income, nutrition, housing and work for all. But we will also insist that protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity and freedom are extremely fundamental human needs as well.
-- Manfred Max-Neef

* I think that nonviolence is one way of saying that there are other ways to solve problems, not only through weapons and war. Nonviolence also means the recognition that the person on one side of the trench and the person on the other side of the trench are both human beings, with the same faculties. At some point they have to begin to understand one another.
-- Rigoberta Menchu

We cannot learn freedom and responsibility within the confines of our own species. We cannot understand life and death and what they are for in exclusively human terms. Without that which is wild, the world becomes a cell block.
~ Stephanie Mills

* O Lord, help me not to despise or oppose what I do not understand.
-- William Penn

* Not all is doom and gloom. We are beginning to understand the natural world and are gaining a reverence for life - all life.
~ Roger Tory Peterson

* The indigenous peoples understand that they have to recover their cultural identity, or to live it if they have already recovered it. They also understand that this is not a favor or a concession, but simply their natural right to be recognized as belonging to a culture that is distinct from the Western culture, a culture in which they have to live their own faith.
-- Bishop Samuel Ruiz Garcia

One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.
-- Carl Sagan