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

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

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

The misfortune of the man of color is having been enslaved. The misfortune and inhumanity of the white man are having killed man somewhere.

Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.

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.

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

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.

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.

Some of us would be greatly astonished to learn the reasons why others respect us.