Archive

Quotes

To think ill of mankind, and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

—William Hazlitt, 1823

The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.

—André Gide, 1927

The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us.

—Theodor Adorno, 1951

Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

—Samuel Johnson, 1751

When you name yourself, you always name another.

—Bertolt Brecht, 1926

I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.

—Martin Luther King Jr., 1962

We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

—Oscar Wilde, 1887

In settling an island, the first building erected by a Spaniard will be a church, by a Frenchman a fort, by a Dutchman a warehouse, and by an Englishman an alehouse.

—Francis Grose, 1787

Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.

—Miriam Makeba, 1988

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

—L.P. Hartley, 1953

Other nations use “force”; we Britons alone use “might.”

—Evelyn Waugh, 1938

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

—George Bernard Shaw, 1903

This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization.

—Tony Blair, 2006