Archive

Quotes

When the missionaries first came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, “Let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land.

—Desmond Tutu, 1984

There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken.

—Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1866

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

—Evelyn Waugh, 1938

Strangers are an endangered species.

—Adrienne Rich, 1980

I 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, 1940

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

—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175

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

—Robert Louis Stevenson, 1883

Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

—Samuel Johnson, 1751

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

—Woodrow Wilson, 1915

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.

—Karl Kraus, 1909

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

—Tony Blair, 2006

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.

—The Dhammapada, c. 400 BC
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