Lapham’s Quarterly

I am a man: I consider nothing human alien to me.

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

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.

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

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

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

I have said this before, but I shall say it again and again and again: your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.

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

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.

All men naturally hate each other. We have used concupiscence as best we can to make it serve the common good, but this is mere sham and a false image of charity, for essentially it is just hate.

A 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.

No man has any natural authority over his fellow man.

Strangers are an endangered species.

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

Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.

Such then is the human state, that to wish greatness for one’s country is to wish harm to one’s neighbors.

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

“Abroad,” that large home of ruined reputations.

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

Nothing is more narrow-minded than chauvinism or racial hatred. To me all men are equal; there are flatheads everywhere and I despise them all equally.

All of life is a foreign country.

If you wish to avoid foreign collision, you had better abandon the ocean.

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

The misfortune of the man of color is having been enslaved. The misfortune and inhumanity of the white man are having killed man somewhere.

I do desire we may be better strangers.

At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.

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

This is not a clash between civilizations. It is a clash about civilization.

Nationalism is an infantile disease, the measles of mankind.

When you name yourself, you always name another.

No nation is fit to sit in judgment upon any other nation.

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

We have really everything in common with America nowadays, except, of course, language.

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.

Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.

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.

One of the most time-consuming things is to have an enemy.

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

There is no foreign land; it is the traveler only that is foreign.

Children are all foreigners. We treat them as such.

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

Intolerance is evidence of impotence.

Other nations use “force”; we Britons alone use “might.”

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.

I want to be the white man’s brother, not his brother-in-law.

The noblest kind of retribution is not to become like your enemy.

Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.

By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be wide apart.

If 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.

France has neither winter, summer, nor morals—apart from these drawbacks it is a fine country.