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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

No man has any natural authority over his fellow man.

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762

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.

—Francis Grose, 1787

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

—L.P. Hartley, 1953

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

I do desire we may be better strangers.

—William Shakespeare, 1600

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

—Marquis de Vauvenargues, 1746

The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.

—André Gide, 1927

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

—The Upanishads, c. 800 BC

Let the French but have England, and they won’t want to conquer it.

—Horace Walpole, 1745

Children are all foreigners. We treat them as such.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1839

Of troubles none is greater than to be robbed of one’s native land.

—Euripides, 431 BC
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