It’s good to remember that in crises, natural crises, human beings forget for a while their ignorances, their biases, their prejudices. For a little while, neighbors help neighbors and strangers help strangers.

No man has any natural authority over his fellow man.

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

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

France has neither winter, summer, nor morals—apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.

“Abroad,” that large home of ruined reputations.

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

All of life is a foreign country.

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.

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

Such then is the human state, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.