The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
—L.P. Hartley, 1953Quotes
I am a man: I consider nothing human alien to me.
—Terence, 163 BCOther nations use “force”; we Britons alone use “might.”
—Evelyn Waugh, 1938To need to dominate others is to need others. The commander is dependent.
—Fernando Pessoa, c. 1935Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
—Samuel Johnson, 1751I do desire we may be better strangers.
—William Shakespeare, 1600Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it.
—Denis Diderot, 1774Nothing 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, 1866To think ill of mankind, and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
—William Hazlitt, 1823No nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other nation.
—Woodrow Wilson, 1915In 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, 1787When 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