Archive

Quotes

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

—Oscar Wilde, 1887

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.

—Maya Angelou, 2011

Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.

—Albert Einstein, 1929

Strangers are an endangered species.

—Adrienne Rich, 1980

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

—Hebrews, c. 60

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

—Voltaire, 1764

To need to dominate others is to need others. The commander is dependent.

—Fernando Pessoa, c. 1935

No nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other nation.

—Woodrow Wilson, 1915

The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.

—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175

If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.

—Francis Bacon, 1625

Children are all foreigners. We treat them as such.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1839

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
  •