....Man's struggle to be rational about himself, about his relationship to his own society and to other peoples and nations involves a constant search for understanding among all peoples and all cultures-a search that can only be effective when learning is pursued on a worldwide basis.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of global understanding and learning in addressing human relationships and societal challenges.
J. William Fulbright's quote expresses the idea that in order to navigate the complexities of human relationships and societal structures, a rational approach is necessary. This rationality can only be achieved through a continuous pursuit of knowledge that transcends cultural and national boundaries, enabling a collective understanding among diverse peoples. In essence, it advocates for education and learning as vital tools for fostering global harmony and comprehension.
In practice
During a school assembly to promote cultural exchange programs.
International educational exchange is the most significant current project designed to continue the process of humanizing mankind to the point, we would hope, that men can learn to live in peace-eventually even to cooperate in constructive activities rather than compete in a mindless contest of mutual destruction....We must try to expand the boundaries of human wisdom, empathy and perception, and there is no way of doing that except through education.
The price of empire is America's soul, and that price is too high.
Maturity requires a final accommodation between our aspirations and our limitations.
Finally, the Program aims, through these means, to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby to increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship.
In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.
We have the power to do any damn fool thing we want to do, and we seem to do it about every ten minutes.
Service-learning is a particularly fertile way of involving young people in community service, because it ties helping others to what they are learning in the classroom. It enables them to apply academic disciplines to practical, everyday problems. In the process, it provides a compelling answer to the adolescent's perennial question, 'Why do I need to learn this stuff?
We live in a moment and a culture when reading is really endangered. There's simply no way to write well, though, if you're not reading well.
To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know.
I love the ideals of my country. But I hate that we've been so denied any real knowledge of the world and don't have the education to think clearly, so we vote against our economic interest and believe in our most shallow first thoughts of fear and hatred.
From that moment on, the world was hers for the reading. She would never be lonely again.
My undergraduates, at first, get all starry-eyed about the idea of finding their passion, but over time, they get far more excited about developing their passion and seeing it through. They come to understand that that's how they and their futures will be shaped and how they will ultimately make their contributions.
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