Acknowledging and nurturing diversity is not a new concept. Some of our greatest leaders in history have recognised the benefits of diversity and its importance in cultivating a harmonious land.
Here are some quotes about the benefits of diversity from influential and revered leaders.
Just as the natural environment depends on biodiversity, so the human environment depends on cultural diversity, because no one civilisation encompasses all the spiritual, ethical and artistic expressions of mankind.
Jonathan Sacks
An individual has not started living until he can rise above the narrow confines of his individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity.
Martin Luther King, Jnr
Strength lies in differences, not in similarities.
Stephen R Covey
I am not born for one corner, the whole world is my native land.
Seneca
I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stifled.
I want all the cultures of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible.
Mahatma Gandhi
We are going forward with the idea of a multicultural, a multinational state, trying to live in unity, at the same time respecting our diversity.
Evo Morales
Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.
Mikhail Gorbachev
There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don’t come to understand that soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.
Isaac Asimov