Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
—Denis Diderot, 1774Quotes
By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
—Confucius, c. 500 BCChildren are all foreigners. We treat them as such.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1839If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
—Francis Bacon, 1625All of life is a foreign country.
—Jack Kerouac, 1949One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
—E.B. White, 1958The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.
—Oscar Wilde, 1887The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L.P. Hartley, 1953At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1850Nothing is more narrow-minded than chauvinism or racial hatred. To me all men are equal; there are flatheads everywhere and I despise them all equally.
—Karl Kraus, 1909This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization.
—Tony Blair, 2006A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him.
—George Mikes, 1946