Fulbright Program Quotes & Sayings

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. — J. William Fulbright

The essence of intercultural education is the acquisition of empathy-the ability to see the world as others see it, and to allow for the possibility that others may see something we have failed to see, or may see it more accurately. The simple purpose of the exchange program ... is to erode the culturally rooted mistrust that sets nations against one another. The exchange program is not a panacea but an avenue of hope ... — J. William Fulbright

The Program further aims to make the benefits of American culture and technology available to the world and to enrich American life by exposing it to the science and art of many societies. — J. William Fulbright

The exchange program is the thing that reconciles me to all the difficulties of political life. — J. William Fulbright

With respect to the creation of the program, I introduced the bill in September 1945, immediately after the end of the war with Japan, in August of that year. A number of considerations, of course, entered into my decision to introduce the bill, growing from my own experience as a Rhodes scholar and the experiences our government had had with the first Word War debts, [Herbert] Hoover's efforts in establishing the Belgian-American Education Foundation after World War I, [and] the Boxer Rebellion indemnity. — J. William Fulbright