123 Ethnic Background Quotes

Following is our list of ethnic background quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about being ethnic.

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Famous Ethnic Background Quotes

The behavior of an individual is determined not by his racial affiliation, but by the character of his ancestry and his cultural environment. — Franz Boas

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

People are born without choosing their father and that’s why we have so many different ethnicities in the world! — Romanian Proverbs

Ethnicity should enrich us; it should make us a unique people in our diversity and not be used to divide us. — Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Ethnic minorities are not one homogeneous political group. — Rishi Sunak

We've got Chinese, white, black and mixed; but remember that our colors are cheap, for after many years of contracts and tricks nobody's purity runs very deep. — Nicolas Guillen

Just because someone's a member of an ethnic minority doesn't mean they're not a nasty small-minded little jerk [...] — Terry Pratchett

Ethnic life in the United States has become a sort of contest like baseball in which the blacks are always the Chicago Cubs. — Ishmael Reed

I come from an immigrant family, but I know no other nationality apart from British. — Maajid Nawaz

It's not even about black and white anymore, because so many people are from mixed backgrounds and mixed ethnicities, and it's just a great time to be able to pull all that together. — George Lopez

My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn't, couldn't end there. At least that's what I would choose to believe. — Barack Obama

My identity is linked to my grandmother, who's pure Filipino, as pure as you can probably get. And that shaped my imagination. So that's how I identify. — Jessica Hagedorn

Regardless of your ethnicity or anything, if you do great work, people will notice and you'll get hired. — Aziz Ansari

I came from a divorced mother and father, obviously mixed race. - Giancarlo Esposito

I came from a divorced mother and father, obviously mixed race. — Giancarlo Esposito

I like them brown, yellow, Puerto Rican, or Haitian Name is Phife Dawg from the Zulu nation. — Phife Dawg

Short Ethnic Background Quotes

  • America is White and Black and Latino and Asian. America is mixed. America is immigrants. — Jose Antonio Vargas
  • Achievement has no color — Abraham Lincoln
  • We stand for the segregation of the races and the racial integrity of each race. — Strom Thurmond
  • In the eyes of government we are just one race here. It is American. — Antonin Scalia
  • Racial distinctions should not play a role in sport. — Pierre de Coubertin
  • L.K.A. bruh. Low key Asians. That's a thing. — Theo Von

Ethnic Background Image Quotes

Ethnic background quote No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his rel
No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love. For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

Ethnic Quotes

If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress. Even if you pull it all the way out, that is not progress. Progress is healing the wound, and America hasn't even begun to pull out the knife. — Malcolm X

The majority of Western culture came out of Europe, which is not comparable to America. It came out of nation states based on geographical and ethnic foundations. America is based on principles, a very different kind of country. — Milo Yiannopoulos

No other country in the world imprisons so many of its racial or ethnic minorities. The United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid — Michelle Alexander

I am the leader of one country which has two alphabets, three languages, four religions, five nationalities, six republics, surrounded by seven neighbours, a country in which live eight ethnic minorities. — Josip Broz Tito

The essence of America - that which really unites us - is not ethnicity, or nationality or religion - it is an idea - and what an idea it is: That you can come from humble circumstances and do great things. — Condoleezza Rice

This country, the Republic of Indonesia, does not belong to any group, nor to any religion, nor to any ethnic group, nor to any group with customs and traditions, but the property of all of us from Sabang to Merauke! — Sukarno

We are all connected. What unites us is our common humanity. I don't want to oversimplify things - but the suffering of a mother who has lost her child is not dependent on her nationality, ethnicity or religion. White, black, rich, poor, Christian, Muslim or Jew - pain is pain - joy is joy. — Desmond Tutu

No one should ever be locked away simply because they share the same race, ethnicity, or religion as a spy or terrorist. If that principle was not learned from the internment of Japanese Americans, then these are very dangerous times for our democracy. — Fred Korematsu

Race, Religion, Ethnic Pride, Nationalism does nothing but teach you how to hate people you have never met — Doug Stanhope

We libertarians are not the spokesmen for any ethnic or economic class; we are the spokesmen for all classes, for all of the public; we strive to see all of these groups united, hand-in-hand, in opposition to the plundering and privileged minority that constitutes the rulers of the State. — Murray Rothbard

Being Ethnic Quotes

Capitalism knows only one color: that color is green; all else is necessarily subservient to it, hence, race, gender and ethnicity cannot be considered within it. — Thomas Sowell

One of the hallmarks of the American justice system is that it should be blind to individuals' idiosyncratic descriptors, including biological sex, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or physical attributes. — Gad Saad

All human beings bear God's image and must be respected for what each person is. Therefore, no external description of one's being, whether based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation, can properly be used as the basis for either rejection or discrimination. — John Shelby Spong

We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out! — Yitzhak Rabin

I just didn’t want to be pigeonholed as an 'ethnic comic' or an 'Asian comic.' I just wanted to be on the same playing field as everyone else. — Aziz Ansari

True peace must be anchored in justice and an unwavering commitment to universal rights for all humans, regardless of ethnicity, religion, gender, national origin or any other identity attribute. — Desmond Tutu

Identity is a concept of our age that should be used very carefully. All types of identities, ethnic, national, religious, sexual or whatever else, can become your prison after a while. The identity that you stand up for can enslave you and close you to the rest of the world. — Murathan Mungan

The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion or ethnic background, is that we all believe we are above-average drivers. — Dave Barry

Regardless of religion or race or ethnic background we are all human and we are all on this planet together. So what better reason do you need to not tolerate any form of violence against another human being? — Tony Bennett

When you grow up in that (multi-ethnic) environment, you see the world differently. Being a mixed-race child, I didn't always see colour in people, I really didn't. It was other people that made me see the colour all the time. — Halle Berry

Ethnic Identity Quotes

In the United Kingdom, we need to promote an inclusive British identity that involves and empowers people from all ethnic and faith backgrounds. — Maajid Nawaz

As a result of the awareness and consciousness of decline, an awareness and consciousness of a national ethnicity or an Islamic identity also came into being. — Abdolkarim Soroush

I do believe, separate and apart from any particular election or movement, that we are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism or ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an us and a them. — Barack Obama

Racism is not an excuse to not do the best you can. — Arthur Ashe

It is important to remember that the Pacific Ocean covers a quarter of the world's surface and that each Pacific country has its own cultural, historical and ethnic identity. — Jenny Shipley

Your ethnic or sexual identity, what region of the country you're from, what your class is - those aspects of your identity are not the same as your aesthetic identity. — Stanley Crouch

The oppression of women knows no ethnic nor racial boundaries, true, but that does not mean it is identical within those boundaries. — Audre Lorde

My potential is more than can be expressed within the bounds of my race or ethnic identity. — Arthur Ashe

A man's ethnic identity has more to do with a personal awareness than with geography. — William Saroyan

I think globalization actually maintains and fosters various elements of national and cultural identities. I don't think everything is being homogenized. If anything, your food, your culture, and your ethnicity might become part of the globalized world, and thus absorbed by other countries. — Nouriel Roubini

Race And Ethnicity Quotes

The attacks in Jordan, just like those before it in Indonesia, Egypt, Spain and the United States, demonstrate that terrorism does not discriminate by race, ethnicity or region. Instead, terrorists indiscriminately target those seeking to live a peaceful, loving and free life. — Allyson Schwartz

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances. — Christopher Dodd

There is an argument that COVID-19 is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Freedom is partial to no race. Freedom has no religion. Freedom favors no ethnicity. Freedom discriminates not between rich and poor countries. Inevitably freedom will overwhelm Ethiopia. — Eskinder Nega

True equality means holding everyone accountable in the same way, regardless of race, gender, faith, ethnicity - or political ideology. — Monica Crowley

We are special because we've been united not by a common race or ethnicity. We're bound together by common values. That family is the most important institution in society. That almighty God is the source of all we have. — Marco Rubio

All too often we think of community in terms of being with folks like ourselves: the same class, same race, same ethnicity, same social standing and the like..I think we need to be wary: we need to work against the danger of evoking something that we don’t challenge ourselves to actually practice. — Bell Hooks

The bloodline of Jesus is thicker, deeper, stronger than the bloodline of race, ethnicity and family. — John Piper

The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do Liberals — Ann Coulter

Everyone, especially minorities of race and ethnicity, now live under a surveillance panoptican. — Henry Giroux

Ethnic Groups Quotes

The island is in Kenya, the water is in Uganda... But the [Luos, a Kenyan ethnic group] are mad, they want to fish here but this is Uganda. — Yoweri Museveni

Independence is not a whim or an ambition. It is the necessary condition of our survival as an ethnic group. — Aslan Maskhadov

Low-income people, racial or ethnic minorities, pregnant women, seniors, people with special needs, people in rural areas - they all have a much harder time accessing a dentist than other groups of Americans. — Bernie Sanders

The European organisation contemplated could not oppose any ethnic group, on other continents or in Europe itself, outside of the League of Nations, any more than it could oppose the League of Nations. — Aristide Briand

During the long process of history, by relying on our own diligence, courage and wisdom, Chinese people have opened up a good and beautiful home where all ethnic groups live in harmony and fostered an excellent culture that never fades. — Xi Jinping

By genocide we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. — Raphael Lemkin

Racism is the dogma that one ethnic group is condemned by nature to congenital inferiority and another group is destined to congenital superiority. — Ruth Benedict

Following the Second World War, we are a country of one ethnicity. After the moving of the borders, after the tragedy of the Holocaust and the murder of Polish Jews, we don't have large minority groups. — Aleksander Kwasniewski

I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences. — Sonia Sotomayor

I believe a constitution can permit the co-existence of several cultures and ethnic groups with a single state. — Pierre Trudeau

Ethnic Diversity Quotes

We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation. — Cesar Chavez

What is crucial is the provision of opportunities for telling all the diverse stories, for interpreting membership as well as ethnicity, for making inescapable the braids of experience woven into the fabric of America's plurality. — Maxine Greene

We have the ability to achieve, if we master the necessary goodwill, a common global society blessed with a shared culture of peace that is nourished by the ethnic, national and local diversities that enrich our lives. — Mahnaz Afkhami

In a lot of films, they're showing more complete, developed characters of diverse ethnic backgrounds. The larger concern is to be able to tastefully explore the stereotypes, and still move past them to see the core of people. — Forest Whitaker

Despite the ethnic diversity within each nation, the social fabric of the region by and large is one. — Bashar al-Assad

I think we should appreciate ethnicity and diversity, and appreciate the uniqueness of all people, but I don't think we should be ethnocentric. These things are not ultimate. — LeCrae

Jesus' epic work through his sinless life, atoning death, resurrection, and ascension, and the sending of the Spirit, was so that God could have an ethnically diverse family of Jews and Gentiles. — Derwin L. Gray

It is not our diversity which divides us; it is not our ethnicity, or religion or culture that divides us. Since we have achieved our freedom, there can only be one division amongst us: between those who cherish democracy and those who do not. — Nelson Mandela

Everyone should be proud of who they are and where they come from because America is a big melting pot of diverse ethnicities. It's great to be part of this wonderful country. — Rima Fakih

Mostly I enjoy the restaurants (my husband is a chef), though I wish we had a wider diversity of ethnic food. — Poppy Z. Brite

People Writing About Ethnic Background

Name Quotes Likes
Read quotes by Franz Boas

Franz Boas
quotes on education, freedom and art

18 659
Read quotes by Sayings

Sayings

6895 535
Read quotes by Romanian Proverbs

Romanian Proverbs
quotes on line, life and marriage

33 1
Read quotes by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
quotes on education, leadership and love

31 897
Read quotes by Rishi Sunak

Rishi Sunak
quotes on Economics, Politics and Business

22 1
Read quotes by Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett
quotes on death, life and death and writing

1387 5273

More Ethnic Background Quotes

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

No matter what race we are, what ethnic background, sexual orientation, or what views we may have, we are all human. Unfortunately, not all humans see it that way. — Erin Gruwell

What everyone in the astronaut corps shares in common is not gender or ethnic background, but motivation, perseverance, and desire - the desire to participate in a voyage of discovery. — Ellen Ochoa

I would rather have a candidate that`s cohesive in bringing people together from different ethnic backgrounds but around the same policy than I would a politician that jumps and stumps in different rooms and has a different story every time. — Killer Mike

The great virtue of a free market is that it enables people who hate each other, or who are from vastly different religious or ethnic backgrounds, to cooperate economically. Government intervention can't do that. — Milton Friedman

Head Start is designed to ensure that all children - regardless of their family's income, race, or ethnic background - are able to enter kindergarten ready to learn. — Lucille Roybal-Allard

I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge regardless of their background or life experiences. — Sonia Sotomayor

When I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic background or because of religion or because of gender. And I do take that into account. — Samuel Alito

Parochial schools in the United States are also responsible for educating students from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds, including many who are non-Catholic. — Mark Foley

Of course, I love everyone I meet. How could I fail to! Within everyone is the spark of God. I am not concerned with racial or ethnic background or the color of one's skin; all people look to me like shining lights! I see in all creatures the reflections of God. All people are my kinfolk - people to me are beautiful! — Peace Pilgrim

No matter the nationality, no matter the religion, no matter the ethnic background, America brings out the best in people. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

All communication is more or less cross-cultural. We learn to use language as we grow up, and growing up in different parts of the country, having different ethnic, religious, or class backgrounds, even just being male or female - all result in different ways of talking. — Deborah Tannen

I ask you to uphold the values of America and remember why so many have come here. We're in a fight for our principles, and our first responsibility is to live by them. No one should be singled out for unfair treatment or unkind words because of their ethnic background or religious faith. — Sayings

I was friends with all different people and all different groups. And that led me to being friends with a few people who didnt even go to my school. Now I have the most amazing collection of friends of all ethnic backgrounds and upbringing and financial backgrounds. — James Maslow

To assert that it is possible to establish peace between men of different nations is simply to assert that man, whatever his ethnical background, his race, religious beliefs, or philosophy, is capable of reason. Two forces within the individual contribute to the development of his conscience and of his morality: reason and sensitivity. — Leon Bourgeois

For [Louis] Brandeis, you know, ethnicity and background are much less important than facts and reason. And he believes that far from wanting to efface our diversity of perspectives, we have to embrace it because that makes us more American, not less. In that sense, he's incredibly modern in an age of cultural pluralism. And it is disappointing for just the reasons you say that not everyone has embraced his pluralistic vision. — Jeffrey Rosen

Motherhood is the second oldest profession in the world. It never questions age, height, religious preference, health, political affiliation, citizenship, morality, ethnic background, marital status, economic level, convenience, or previous experience. — Erma Bombeck

In America, we're trying to find a peaceful solution in the Middle East, and we're not going to be divided along any lines. — Darrell Issa

Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group Groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together [is] surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. — Carl Sagan

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

In some cases, the casting directors have casted blindly and have not looked into my ethnic background. — Mario Lopez

We have a man [Donald Trump] who judges people based on their performance regardless of your gender, race, your ethnic or religious background. — Chris Christie

They said, OK, nine [Louis] Brandeis's is too much, but one is OK. So, with friends like that, and so forth. But, yes, the idea that because he was Jewish he would rule a particular way was an ugly undercurrent of the hearings, which resonates with current claims that a judge can't be impartial because of his or her background or ethnicity or race. It's, I guess, a small comfort that in the end the Brandeis vote wasn't close. — Jeffrey Rosen

There's a great variety of people in Washington, but I think because of the great concentration of people in New York, that variety is more visible. You walk the streets and there are people of every color, shape and size, ethnic background, religion, it doesn't matter. It's always present. — Sonia Sotomayor

There are many in East Asia who simply judge students on the basis of national tests. The top universities in the United States do not do that, and for good reason. We need a careful process for admissions that take all sorts of factors into account: different intellectual strengths, artistic expression, economic standing, social background, ethnicity, regional representation and designs a class as a balanced whole. — Henry Rosovsky

It's like a laboratory, a micro-society of real life, so it didn't look odd to talk about bureaucracy. In the school, in the class, there are already a lot of children from different ethnic backgrounds so the reality is there. I don't have to shove it in people's face. It's just there and it's normal. — Philippe Falardeau

Today Jazz music is performed & listened to by people of all ethnicity, backgrounds, ages & creeds. — Michelle Obama

The Germans gathered together ethnic divisions from all over Europe in which men of the same linguistic and cultural background could serve together. The Georgian SS division conducted itself with distinction in normal military action, but a good many people seem to think that anybody who was ever a member of the SS was automatically a war criminal. — Jeff Cooper

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

As a child in the rural district of Penal I remember sharing meals from the same pot with neighbours of different racial, ethnic, social and economic backgrounds. — Kamla Persad-Bissessar

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

Evangelicals come from all ethnic and racial backgrounds, but nearly 90 percent of Americans who call themselves evangelicals are white. — Christian Smith

I feel very fortunate, I've been exposed to a lot of different cultures. If I wasn't from a multi-ethnic background, I wouldn't have had these great experiences. And one of the things that makes me a good actor is life experience. — Navi Rawat

Sometimes we exclude things in ourselves in order to be like everybody else around us-our ethnicity, our social backgrounds, our ideas. What kind of world is it that will not allow me to be myself, and is it really good for me to be there? What part of me will die a slow death if I stay? — Joan D. Chittister

The thing that is making jazz healthy today is that people are coming out of other backgrounds - from rock, folk, from ethnic music. It's changing the music, and for the better. — Billy Taylor

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