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Quotes

Nothing 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, 1909

“Abroad,” that large home of ruined reputations.

—George Eliot, 1866

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.

—The Dhammapada, c. 400 BC

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

—Tony Blair, 2006

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

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

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.

—Søren Kierkegaard, 1850

I am a man: I consider nothing human alien to me.

—Terence, 163 BC

All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.

—Blaise Pascal, c. 1655

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

—Confucius, c. 500 BC

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

—Theodor Adorno, 1951

Let the French but have England, and they won’t want to conquer it.

—Horace Walpole, 1745

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

—André Gide, 1927