Quotes from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America

Ronald Takaki ·  508 pages

Rating: (3.2K votes)


“I believe our education system as a whole has not integrated the histories of all people into our education system, just the Eurocentric view of itself, and the White-centered view of African Americans, and even this is slim to nonexistent. What I find is that most people don't know the fact they don't know, because of the complete lack of information.”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America


“the study of diversity is essential for understanding how and why America became what Walt Whitman called a “teeming nation of nations.”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America


“Jefferson exploded with guilt: “The torment of mind, I will endure till the moment shall arrive when I shall not owe a shilling on earth is such really as to render life of little value.”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America


“      The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it; for man is an imitative animal. This quality is the germ of all education in him. From his cradle to his grave he is learning to do what he sees others do. If a parent could find no motive either in his philanthropy or his self-love, for restraining the intemperance of passion toward his slave, it should always be a sufficient one that his child is present. But generally it is not sufficient. The parent storms, the child looks on, catches the lineaments of wrath, puts on the same airs in the circle of smaller slaves, gives a loose to his worst of passions, and thus nursed, educated, and daily exercised in tyranny, cannot but be stamped by it with odious peculiarities. The man must be a prodigy who can retain his manners and morals undepraved by such circumstances.”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America


“What I find is that most people don’t know the fact that they don’t know, because of the complete lack of information.”4”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America



“War is our only recourse. There is no other remedy.”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America


“War exists notwithstanding all our efforts to avoid it.”8”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America


“In 1852, of the 11,794 Chinese in California, only seven were women.”
― Ronald Takaki, quote from A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America


About the author

Ronald Takaki
Born place: in Oahu, Hawaii, The United States
Born date April 12, 1939
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“A law in physics, called the second law of thermodynamics, says that entropy, or chaos (the opposite of growth…a winding-down process), increases over time. You can readily see this in life, and we have already talked about it. Anything left to its own is naturally dying, getting more disorganized, rusting, etc. Even the universe itself is subject to that process.”
― Henry Cloud, quote from Integrity: The Courage to Meet the Demands of Reality


“God’s love never ceases. Never. Though we spurn him. Ignore him. Reject him. Despise him. Disobey him. He will not change. Our evil cannot diminish his love. Our goodness cannot increase it. Our faith does not earn it anymore than our stupidity jeopardizes it. God doesn’t love us less if we fail or more if we succeed. God’s love never ceases.1”
― Max Lucado, quote from Just Like Jesus: Learning to Have a Heart Like His


“there was no such thing as past or future. There was no time that could be lost or won. The only thing that counted was action.”
― Henning Mankell, quote from One Step Behind


“You can form other organizations and expect someone else. With that I am not concerned, nor with creating new cages, new decorations for those cages. My only concern is to set men absolutely, unconditionally free.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti, quote from Total Freedom: The Essential Krishnamurti


“...Life does have its twists and turns, and that certainly is true. However, one can predict the future with some degree of accuracy based on one's own knowledge of past events. And rare events do occur , but it is their lack of repetition that makes them rare.

I cannot alter the past, but the future is very much in my hands

I find that memories, especially from one's childhood, very often do not live up to the realities

Does anyone truly understand females? the more I am in their company the less i know. Their behavior is the opposite of everything in the natural order and flies in the face of logic.

Oh, I can see you are enjoying yourself. You have my heart, and now you will toy with it

She did believe that two souls could come together, so that the one would know if something had happened to the other despite distance or war.

The only way to get through life's rough spots is to laugh whenever possible”
― Mary Lydon Simonsen, quote from The Perfect Bride for Mr. Darcy


Interesting books

Reason to Breathe
(81.1K)
Reason to Breathe
by Rebecca Donovan
Mere Christianity
(221.4K)
Mere Christianity
by C.S. Lewis
Christine
(163.5K)
Christine
by Stephen King
Blood Red Road
(54.5K)
Blood Red Road
by Moira Young
Kiss the Girls
(287K)
Kiss the Girls
by James Patterson
Winesburg, Ohio
(26.2K)
Winesburg, Ohio
by Sherwood Anderson

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.