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Quotes

There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866

When you name yourself, you always name another.

—Bertolt Brecht, 1926

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.

—Denis Diderot, 1774

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

A 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

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.

—Joseph Conrad, 1899

If 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, 1625

All of life is a foreign country.

—Jack Kerouac, 1949

By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.

—Confucius, c. 500 BC

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

—Evelyn Waugh, 1938

One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.

—E.B. White, 1958

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

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

—Miriam Makeba, 1988