By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
—Confucius, c. 500 BCQuotes
I do desire we may be better strangers.
—William Shakespeare, 1600Let the French but have England, and they won’t want to conquer it.
—Horace Walpole, 1745When you name yourself, you always name another.
—Bertolt Brecht, 1926Such then is the human state, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.
—Voltaire, 1764No nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other nation.
—Woodrow Wilson, 1915The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
—Henry Clay, 1812Other nations use “force”; we Britons alone use “might.”
—Evelyn Waugh, 1938At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
—Søren Kierkegaard, 1850I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.
—Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1940Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.
—Marquis de Vauvenargues, 1746