Archive

Quotes

Of troubles none is greater than to be robbed of one’s native land.

—Euripides, 431 BC

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

—Oscar Wilde, 1887

The misfortune of the man of color is having been enslaved. The misfortune and inhumanity of the white man are having killed man somewhere.

—Frantz Fanon, 1952

When the missionaries first came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.

—Desmond Tutu, 1984

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

—Miriam Makeba, 1988

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

—André Gide, 1927

There is no foreign land; it is the traveler only that is foreign.

—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883

Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.

—Marquis de Vauvenargues, 1746

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

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866

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

—Samuel Johnson, 1751

All of life is a foreign country.

—Jack Kerouac, 1949

Strangers are an endangered species.

—Adrienne Rich, 1980

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

—L.P. Hartley, 1953