I have been a stranger here in my own land all my life.
—Sophocles, c. 441 BC
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Quotes
A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
—Herman Melville, 1851A criminal may improve and become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him.
—George Mikes, 1946My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
—Karl Kraus, c. 1910What is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?
—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 46 BCNone who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.
—Pearl S. Buck, 1943And then, sir, there is this consideration: that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up and, claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
—Samuel Johnson, 1791Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.
—Coretta Scott King, 1994We are so constituted that we believe the most incredible things, and once they are engraved upon the memory, woe to him who would endeavor to erase them.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774Refrigerators and television sets, or even rockets sent to the moon, do not change man into God.
—Czesław Miłosz, 1960There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
—Thomas Jefferson, 1790The sea hath fish for every man.
—William Camden, 1605