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

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.

Once any group in society stands in a relatively deprived position in relation to other groups, it is genuinely deprived.

Africa has her mysteries, and even a wise man cannot understand them. But a wise man respects them.

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.

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

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

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

Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.

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

When you name yourself, you always name another.

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