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, 1984Quotes
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts, unguarded.
—The Dhammapada, c. 400 BCOne of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.
—E.B. White, 1958Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.
—The Upanishads, c. 800 BCNo man has any natural authority over his fellow man.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization.
—Tony Blair, 2006All of life is a foreign country.
—Jack Kerouac, 1949The 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.
—Joseph Conrad, 1899Strangers are an endangered species.
—Adrienne Rich, 1980“Abroad,” that large home of ruined reputations.
—George Eliot, 1866If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.
—Francis Bacon, 1625We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.
—Oscar Wilde, 1887