Cosmopolitanism Quotes

“I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world."

[As quoted in Plutarch's Of Banishment]”
― Socrates

“As we encounter each other, we see our diversity — of background, race, ethnicity, belief – and how we handle that diversity will have much to say about whether we will in the end be able to rise successfully to the great challenges we face today.”
― Dan Smith, The State of the World Atlas

“Bigotry does not consort easily with free trade.”
― Peter Ackroyd, Venice: Pure City

“Cairo and Alexandria were cosmopolitan not so much because they contained foreigners, but because the Egyptian born in them is himself a stranger to his land.”
― Waguih Ghali, Beer in the Snooker Club

“If you like war, be a nationalist. If you like peace, be a citizen of the world.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, How to Defeat the Trump Cult: Want to Save Democracy? Share This Book

“if relativism about ethics and morality were true, then, at the end of many discussions, we. would each have to end up by saying, “From where I stand, I am right. From where you stand, you are right.” And there would be nothing further to say. From our different perspectives, we. would be living effectively in different worlds. And without a shared world, what is there to discuss? People often recommend relativism because they think it will lead to tolerance. But if we cannot learn from one another what it is right to think and feel and do, then conversation between us will be pointless. Relativism of that sort isn't a way to encourage conversation; it's just a reason to fall silent.”
― Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers

“I fully recognize there is an urgent need for constructing the _strategic we-nes-in-sameness_ and promoting the _solidarity of sameness_. The sheer realization of the inextricable interconnectedness of I-ness/me-ness and we-ness/us-ness is the round for an authentic solidarity with one another in spite of and regardless of the difference.”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World

“New York presented a paradox. While foreigners thought of New York has the symbol of America, many Americans viewed the city with some suspicion as the country's most foreign.”
― Charles Emmerson, 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War

“If the well-being of my loved place depends on the well-being of Earth, I have a good reason for supporting the well-being of your loved place. I have selfish as well as cosmopolitan reasons for preserving the home-places of all human beings. Cosmopolitanism becomes thicker and more potent with this realization.”
― Nel Noddings, Peace Education: How We Come to Love and Hate War

“Cosmopolitanism promotes a sense of new _we-ness as regarding every individual human being as a citizen of the cosmos. However, the _we-cosmic-citizens_ are not to promote the _we-ness-in-sameness_, but rather the we-ness-in-alterity_.Unlike the solidarity-in-sameness, cosmopolitan _solidarity-in-alterity_ celebrates the singularity and difference of each individual human being while not denying the historical necessity of the strategic construction of _we_ to challenge the very sociopolitically imposed category”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World

“Who are theologians? What kind of self-identity could or should a theologian claim? Should a theologian be a defender or transmitter of Christian _tradition_? What if the _tradition_ itself carries a dark side, implicitly or explicitly, bounded by religious or cultural superiorism, ethnocentrism, homophobism, exclusive nationalism, sexism, racism, and so forth? What kind of _identity_ would then justify my rule as theologian? This question has been lingering in my mind throughout the time I have been working on cosmopolitan theology. it may sound simple, but for me the identity issue has been fundamental.”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World

“Theologians are to look to the _beyond_-community–– _beyond_ nationality; skin-color, gender; sexual orientation, citizenship, religious affiliation––because God, the Divine, who is the primary frame of reference for theologians, is for, with, in, among those individual human beings. It is to reaffirm the sheer truth: No one is better or worse, superior or inferior than any other; and, 'Ich bin du, wenn Ich Ich bin' [I am you, when Iam I.]”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World

“now the question we must ask is...what kind of _practices_ [theology] motivates, what kind of _gaze_ onto others, the guest, the new arrivant, it offers us to carry with us; _not_ who my neighbors are _but_ to whom I am being a neighbor.”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World

“And you can fool yourself if you’re raised in New York. Think that somehow your birthplace alone makes you cosmopolitan. But it isn’t true. We’re rubes too.”
― Victor LaValle, Big Machine

“Highly esteemed dear Professor Franck,
In these days in which by your magnanimous decision you show the world where the insane oppression of the Jews leads to, I as one of your students would not like to be missing among those who declare their sincere thanks and unlimited veneration to you, and who especially now are filled with the highest admiration by your present step and the reason given by you, and who at the same time are filled with horror that such a thing is necessary.
I am at a loss for words to express what both my wife and I always and especially now feel for you. Please remember us to your wife and chidlren and accept our sincere greetings.”
― Gerhard Herzberg

“What does it mean to be human, to continue to live as human, to remain _faithful_ to the Divine while living in a cultural, sociogeopoltical, and religious world where power disparity between/among humans based on religious world where power disparity between/among humans based on their nationality, citizenship, gender, race, class, sexuality, ability, religion and so forth still prevails? The act of _theologizing_ for me involves responding to these questions and stimulating the practice of liberating and enlarging human possibility in our daily reality.”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World

“cosmopolitan theology that longs for the Kindom of God seeks to recover its revolutionary universalizing ethos in terms of hospitality, neighbor-love, and multiple solidarities that one can see in Jesus' teaching and ministry, without any imperialist, kyriarchcal, hierarchical implications”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World

“Theology should be a discourse that helps the sociopolitical approach to justice to maintain its human face and not to become impersonal.”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World

“Cosmopolitan theology is a theology for _the impossible_.”
― Namsoon Kang, Cosmopolitan Theology: Reconstituting Planetary Hospitality, Neighbor-Love, and Solidarity in an Uneven World

“Rather than equating the terms 'local' and 'cosmopolitan' with geographical areas (rural and urban respectively), sociologist Wade Clark Roof suggests that these terms refer to character types who can be found in a diversity of settings in the United States. Locals are strongly oriented toward community or neighborhood, favor commitments to primary groups (family, neighborhood, fraternal and community organizations), tend to personalize their interpretations of social experience, and are more traditional in their beliefs and values. Cosmopolitans, on the other hand, are oriented toward the world outside the residential community, prefer membership in professional or special interest organizations, and are more open to social change and more tolerant of diversity in belief than locals. While a disproportionate number of locals are found in smaller communities, studies indicate that other factors - such as length of residence in a community, age, and educational level - play an even stronger role in determining orientation.”
― Leonora Tubbs Tisdale, Preaching as Local Theology and Folk Art

“Welcome to the 21st century cosmopolitan world where biased thoughts preside over unbiased deeds, simple gestures become overrated gossip materials and injustice is a part of long term justice.”
― Adhish Mazumder, Solemn Tales of Human Hearts

“Americans brag about their assault rifles. Germans brag about their exotic vacations.”
― Oliver Markus Malloy, How to Defeat the Trump Cult: Want to Save Democracy? Share This Book

“Much as people might like to stress their attachment to particular territories, all societies have originally come from somewhere else to live in the lands they presently occupy. Moreover, the future will see some of them move elsewhere, in whole or in part, or be transformed over time by the immigration of other peoples into their midst. People can reconcile themselves to these often beneficial changes by recognizing that no society has ever had the exclusive possession of their land for all time and by acknowledging that the world is not only the ancestral land of us all but will remain as the wider homeland of everyone.”
― David Day

“C'è migliore prova di cosmopolitismo nell'intero Mediterraneo?
Quelli che arrivano a Venezia dai vari centri dell'Europa vi incontrano l'Oriente. Per le popolazioni dei Balcani e del Vicino Oriente, invece, Venezia è al tempo stesso Europa e Occidente! Gli uni vedono in essa le origini di Bisanzio, gli altri la fine. Venetiae quasi alterum Bysantium ― sono le parole del celebre cardinale Bessarione, che a suo tempo arricchì la Biblioteca di San Marco con i tesori librari della bizantina Costantinopoli. Nella sua saggezza, Venezia non volle sul proprio territorio lo scontro fra bizantinità e romanità che invece ha dilaniato alcune regioni dei Balcani. Qui sta una delle caratteristiche di questa città. Il «divano orientale-occidentale» non è in nessun luogo così largo e soffice come in questo spazio esiguo e scomodo.”
― Predrag Matvejević, The Other Venice: Secrets of the City

“The idea is more horny on paper than in practice.”
― Leonard Woolf, International Government

“[...]Cosmopolitan evolutionism is an illusion, and it is everywhere being exposed as such.
There is no solution to Foreignness. It is eternal - and radical. It is not a matter of wanting it to be that way. It simply is so.”
― Jean Baudrillard, The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena

“Una visione politica realmente globale richiede allora di abbracciare quello che definiamo un cosmopolitismo quotidiano, una cura promiscua su scala globale che porti la nostra visione della cura al di là delle strutture di parentela, delle comunità e degli stati fino alle zone più remote ed “estranee” del pianeta. I soggetti cosmopoliti, letteralmente i “cittadini del mondo”, sono quelli che hanno a cuore il mondo.”
― The Care Collective, The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence

“The boundary of your state is not the boundary of your moral concern.”
― Kwame Anthony Appiah

“Nations matter morally, when they do, as things desires by autonomous agents whose autonomous desires we ought to acknowledge and take account of, even if we cannot always accede to them. States, on the other hand, matter morally intrinsically. They matter not because people care about them, but because they regulate our lives through forces of coercion that will always require moral justification.”
― Kwame Anthony Appiah

“Today, nearly two-thirds of the citizens in EU countries believe immigration has a harmful impact on their societies. Cosmopolitanism, once considered a virtue, is less in vogue than nativism.”
― Madeleine K. Albright, Fascism: A Warning