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

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.

“Abroad,” that large home of ruined reputations.

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.

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

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

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

If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.

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.

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

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

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.