The biggest lesson I learned from Vietnam is not to trust [our own] government statements.

Intolerance of dissent is a well-noted feature of the American national character.

We must care to think about the unthinkable things, because when things become unthinkable, thinking stops and action becomes mindless.

The American public has become so conditioned by crises, by warnings, by words, that there are few, other than the young, who protest against what is happening.

There is nothing obscure about the objectives of educational exchange. Its purpose is to acquaint Americans with the world as it is and to acquaint students and scholars from many lands with America as it is-not as we wish it were or as we might wish foreigners to see it, but exactly as it is-which by my reckoning is an "image" of which no American need be ashamed.

There is an inevitable divergence between the world as it is and the world as men perceive it.

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.