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Quotes

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

Once any group in society stands in a relatively deprived position in relation to other groups, it is genuinely deprived.

—Margaret Mead, 1972

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

—Evelyn Waugh, 1938

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

—Oscar Wilde, 1887

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

—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883

When you name yourself, you always name another.

—Bertolt Brecht, 1926

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

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

—Denis Diderot, 1774

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

—Terence, 163 BC

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

To think ill of mankind, and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

—William Hazlitt, 1823

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

—E.B. White, 1958
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