I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.
—Martin Luther King Jr., 1962Quotes
By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.
—Confucius, c. 500 BCIn 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.
—Francis Grose, 1787It’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, 2011The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.
—Marcus Aurelius, c. 175Such then is the human state, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.
—Voltaire, 1764The misfortune of the man of color is having been enslaved. The misfortune and inhumanity of the white man are having killed man somewhere.
—Frantz Fanon, 1952To need to dominate others is to need others. The commander is dependent.
—Fernando Pessoa, c. 1935All of life is a foreign country.
—Jack Kerouac, 1949Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.
—The Upanishads, c. 800 BCIf you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.
—Henry Clay, 1812To think ill of mankind, and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.
—William Hazlitt, 1823