Quotes & Sayings About Xenophobia

Libraries are a force for good. They wear capes. They fight evil. They don't get upset when you don't send them a card on their birthdays. (Though they will charge you if you're late returning a book.) They serve communities. The town without a library is a town without a soul. The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experiences, the hopes and dreams and strivings of ALL human beings, and it is this passport that opens our eyes and hearts to the world beyond our front doors, that is one of our best hopes against tyranny, xenophobia, hopelessness, despair, anarchy, and ignorance. Libraries are the torch of the world, illuminating the path when it feels too dark to see. We mustn't allow that torch to be extinguished. — Libba Bray

The years between Roger Bacon's birth, in 1220, and Uthred's death, in 1370, are considered the final flowering of the Middle Ages. They were followed by a longer, grimmer period in Europe, during which the machinery for rooting out heresy defeated enlightened discourse almost completely. The early condemnation of works by William Ockham, Johannes Eckehart, the spiritual Franciscans, and Dante signaled the start of a breakdown in the integrity of Western thought. During this Great Interruption, xenophobia replaced curiosity, interest in Islam and the classics withered, and Muslim thought was anathematized or ignored. Fifty years later, it was no longer wise to learn Arabic, Hebrew, or even Greek. — Michael Wolfe

Immigrants have been coming here for a long time. The Americans that are afraid of others coming were immigrants once themselves, so they have a lot of nerve. We have a lot of nerve as a country. The only people that should have xenophobia are Native Americans. Everyone else should shut up. — Godfrey

Our love of lockstep is our greatest curse, the source of all that bedevils us. It is the source of homophobia, xenophobia, racism, sexism, terrorism, bigotry of every variety and hue, because it tells us there is one right way to do things, to look, to behave, to feel, when the only right way is to feel your heart hammering inside you and to listen to what its timpani is saying. — Anna Quindlen

Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if we all got along. If there were no terrorism, Islamophobia, Western hypocrisy, corrupt government in African countries (especially Liberia), sexism, nativism, people like Donald Trump, stereotypes, war, Capitalism, Communism, Marxism and xenophobia. — Henry Johnson Jr

Nationalism: the curious notion that barbarism becomes a virtue when it reaches tribal proportions. — Jakub Bozydar Wisniewski

Xenophobia manifests itself especially against civilizations and cultures that are weak because they lack economic resources, means of subsistence or land. So nomadic people are the first targets of this kind of aggression. — Antonio Tabucchi

History shows that it is not only senseless and cruel, but also difficult to state who is a foreigner. — Claudio Magris

By the eighteenth century many were showing all the negative conservatism of a vested interest overtaken by events: dogged devotion to old techniques, suspicion of innovation, resentment of competition and xenophobia. — Timothy C.W. Blanning

People tend 2 choke
that which they do not understand — Tupac Shakur

Remember that when you say 'I will have none of this exile and this stranger for his face is not like my face and his speech is strange,' you have denied America with that word. — Stephen Vincent Benet

Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden. — Desmond Tutu

If you do finish the book and are still scared of me and people of my ilk, then I recommend you schedule an appointment with a therapist. Either that, or try writing your own book — Maz Jobrani

It is the lies he's telling her - as he has been, Nassun understands suddenly, her whole life - that really break her heart. He's said that he loves her, after all, but that obviously isn't true. He cannot love an orogene, and that is what she is. He cannot be an orogene's father, and that is why he constantly demands she be something other than what she is. — N.K. Jemisin

Whatever the evolutionary basis of religion, the xenophobia it now generates is clearly maladaptive. — Lawrence M. Krauss

The guard looked from one to the other. His mind was soon made up. His training led him to despise foreigners, and to respect and admire well-dressed gentleman who travelled first class. — Agatha Christie

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American ... There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag ... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language ... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people. — Theodore Roosevelt

It may be that only when xenophobia stops working as an election winner will the way be cleared for a return to bipartisanship — Donald Horne

What we have got to do immediately is to say that racism and xenophobia is totally unacceptable and we will stand with the 1 percent of our population who are Muslims, for undocumented people in this country. Absolutely, we will stand. — Bernie Sanders

A more serious concern would be if the United States turned inward and seriously curtailed immigration. With its current levels of immigration, America is one of the few developed countries that may avoid demographic decline and keep its share of world population, but this might change if reactions to terrorist events or public xenophobia closed the borders. Fears over the effect of immigration on national values and on a coherent sense of American identity have existed since the early years of the nation. — Joseph S. Nye Jr.

In history, truth should be held sacred, at whatever cost ... especially against the narrow and futile patriotism, which, instead of pressing forward in pursuit of truth, takes pride in walking backwards to cover the slightest nakedness of our forefathers. — Col. Thomas Aspinwall

"Oppression" or "systems of oppression" operate as a shorthand terms in much writing and speaking so that we do not have to list all these systems of meaning and control each time (i.e. racism, ableism, xenophobia, etc.). I needed a term like that, but "oppression" implies a kind of top-down understanding of power that is at odds with the Foucaultian model I rely on in my work. — Dean Spade

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd. — Bertrand Russell

Reconciliation is a long process. We don't have the kind of race clashes that we thought would happen. What we have is xenophobia, and it's very distressing. But maybe you ought to be lenient with us. We've been free for just 12 years. — Desmond Tutu

I do not believe, from what I have been told about this people, that there is anything barbarous or savage about them, except that we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits. — Michel De Montaigne

When you take fright and add to it ignorance, you get hatred. That's a very unattractive equation. — Ann M. Martin

If you can not call out bigotry, corruption, racism, sexism, xenophobia, islamophobia, ageism, agnosticism, imperialism, antiblackism, antisemitism, authoritarianism, terrorism, egoism, and totalitarianism; then you are encouraging it to grow. There is no retreat from all the "isms" conflicts with which we must cope.

The most fecund killer of innocent in all of human history is not a disease or natural catastrophe. It is rooted in a sick way of thinking in which we have been programmed. Avoiding the quandary isn't helpful. A public discussion of these challenges could open up a new dialogue of approach. Without, this is the reality that the next generation would have to live with. — Henry Johnson Jr

I made the rules I figured I could be the one to break them. I thought I would write about xenophobia, a hatred of foreigners. After I stated writing the story there was not a foreigner to be had. I did not want to just stick one in there so I could get a title out of it since it seemed like cheating. I never figured out how I could get out of this dilemma so I just called it X and weaved X traits into the story. — Sue Grafton

A student of Syrian affairs soon becomes used to paradox. A comparatively small country, narrowly chauvinistic and jealous of its national sovereignty, Syria is nevertheless the repository, and has often been the origin, of oecumenical and transcendental ideas about Arab unity. Its society is one of the most heterogeneous in the Middle East and yet its leaders have been the proponents of a radical integrative political movement: Arab Nationalism. It has kindly and hospitable inhabitants, but it is also a police state where a man can be locked up indefinitely without a trial. Your Syrian friends are your friends for life, but a curious current of xenophobia runs through the country. Syrians love culture and natural beauty, but the ugliness of many Syrians towns and their architecture has to be seen to be believed. — David Roberts

I hear a lot of talk today about xenophobia. Is it really phobia if you have something to be afraid of? — Bill Maher

We must maximize our efforts to counter violent extremism, radicalization and recruitment in the United States and stop using xenophobia and ethnic stereotyping. — Bennie Thompson

The disposition, in any conflict, to side with 'them' against 'us', and the felt need to denigrate the customs, culture and institutions that are identifiably 'ours'. Being the opposite of xenophobia I propose to call this state of mind oikophobia, by which I mean (stretching the Greek a little) the repudiation of inheritance and home. — Roger Scruton

No one needs to be reminded of racism in soccer: the xenophobia, the nativism and, yes, nationalism. — Rabih Alameddine

We are social beings who make communities with an urgency, and it is a stern charge to make us take refuge in the lonely world of oneself ... Racism attempts to occlude our cosmopolitanism (of the songs in and out of our bones), and it often appropriates our mild forms of xenophobia into its own virulent project. Difference among peoples is something that we negotiate in our everyday interactions, asking questions and being better informed of our mutual realities. To transform difference into the body is an act of bad faith, a denial of our shared nakedness. — Vijay Prashad

Xenophobia is when you smile at people and they don't smile back. — Neel Burton

I mean to ask whether there is any way of avoiding the hostility expressed by the division say, of men into "us" (Westerners) and "they" (Orientals). For such divisions are generalities whose use historically and actually has been to press the importance of the distinction between some men and some other men, usually towards not especially admirable ends. — Edward W. Said

If it's okay to enrich ourselves by denying foreigners the right to earn a living, why shouldn't we enrich ourselves by invading peaceful countries and seizing their assets? Most of us don't think that's a good idea, and not just because it might backfire. We don't think it's a good idea because we believe human beings have human rights, whatever their colour and wherever they live. Stealing assets is wrong, and so is stealing the right to earn a living, no matter where the victim was born. — Steven E. Landsburg

Time and again we see leaders and members of religions incite aggression, fanaticism, hate, and xenophobia - even inspire and legitimate violent and bloody conflicts. — Hans Kung

We've had characters like Trump in American politics forever, characters who trade on xenophobia. — Lin-Manuel Miranda

Ten wagons to choose from and you pick the only one that has a human on it. Racist. — Jeffery Russell

...the first move to a more tolerant Australia must come from controlling the aversion to Muslims that is at present the principal xenophobia in this country. — Donald Horne

To exclude groups of people because of their faith, this isn't worthy of the free state in which we live. It isn't compatible with our essential values. And its humanly reprehensible, xenophobia, racism, extremism have no place here. We are fighting to ensure that they don't have a place elsewhere either. — Angela Merkel

In addition to its elements of adolescent titillation, the world of JA2 contains racism, sexism, xenophobia, government-sponsored torture, child labor, and extreme economic inequality. And yet it's difficult to say what the game's overall stance is on these issues. JA2 is highly pluralistic, allowing you to play all sorts of characters from all sorts of backgrounds. That pluralism leads to a kind of moral relativism. While you can have a squad of friendly heroes who help each other as well as the downtrodden people of Arulco, you can also play as a squad of psychotic good ol' boys who ignore issues of social justice, seeking only to get a paycheck for putting a bullet in the queen's head. — Anonymous

We of alien looks or words must stick together. — C.J. Sansom

Many people who are forced into emigration suffer and often die tragically; many of their rights are violated, they are obliged to separate from their families and, unfortunately, continue to be subjected to racist attitudes and xenophobia. — Pope Francis

Jija killed his own son for what a completely different person did, long before that son's birth. This, more than anything, helps her finally understand that there is no reasoning with her father's hatred. — N.K. Jemisin

All classes in proportion to their lack of travel and familiarity with foreign literature are bellicose, prejudiced against foreigners, fond of fighting as a cruel sport
in short, dog-like in their notions of foreign policy.
[Quoted in Socialism and Foreign Policy and War and the Liberal Conscience] — George Bernard Shaw

I learned early that the one truly international quality among people of all races is xenophobia. — Christopher Lee

I wish she'd said something different, but patriarchy is as prevalent around the world as racism and xenophobia are. We can't hide from it, not even here. — Raquel Cepeda

I resolutely believe that respect for diversity is a fundamental pillar in the eradication of racism, xenophobia and intolerance. There is no excuse for evading the responsibility of finding the most suitable path toward the elimination of any expression of discrimination against indigenous peoples. — Rigoberta Menchu

He blushed to see other Frenchmen overcome with joy whenever they met a compatriot abroad. The would fall on each other, cluster in a raucous group, and pass whole evenings complaining about the barbarity of the locals. These were the few who actually noticed that locals did things differently. Others managed to travel so 'covered and wrapped in a taciturn and incommunicative prudence, defending themselves from the contagion of an unknown atmosphere' that they noticed nothing at all. — Sarah Bakewell

The library card is a passport to wonders and miracles, glimpses into other lives, religions, experiences, the hopes and dreams and strivings of ALL human beings, and it is this passport that opens our eyes and hearts to the world beyond our front doors, that is one of our best hopes against tyranny, xenophobia, hopelessness, despair, anarchy, and ignorance. — Libba Bray

All definitions of civilization along to a conjugation which goes: I am civilized, you belong to a culture, he is a barbarian. — Felipe Fernandez-Armesto

Why don't they let us explain who we are?' Derin protested 'It's not fair judging us like that without giving us a chance to speak'
Marna laughed mirthlessly.
'Do you think that would help?' she responded. 'The face of fear has neither eyes nor ears. It is blind and deaf to all but its own terrors. — Victor Kelleher

Ollie was soon invited to attend public rallies and private meetings in which the crowd called for the expulsion of all foreigners from Sweden calling them parasites that sucked money and health benefits from the social security system. In fact, most of the protestors and demonstrators themselves lived on social security money while most of the immigrants were gainfully employed and paid their taxes regularly. But these facts were irrelevant since prejudice and xenophobia were dominant. — Charles Z. David

Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it, 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty - to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy. — Abraham Lincoln

Multilate. Ha Ha Ha,' said Nusswan, avuncular and willing to pretend it was a clever joke. 'Its all relative. At the best of times, democracy is a see saw between complete chaos and tolerable confusion. You see, to make a democratic omelette you have to break a few democratic eggs. To fight fascism and other evil forces threatening our country, there is nothing wrong in taking strong measures. Especially when the foreign hand is always interfering to destabilize us. Did you know the CIA is trying to sabotage the Family Planning Programme? — Rohinton Mistry

Harris: Yes. In fact, self-deception might have paid evolutionary dividends in other ways. Robert Trivers argues, for instance, that people who can believe their own lies turn out to be the best liars of all - and an ability to deceive rivals has obvious advantages in the state of nature. Now, clearly many things may have been adaptive for our ancestors - such as tribal warfare, rape, xenophobia - that we now deem unethical and would never want to defend. But I'm wondering if you see any possibility that a social system that maximizes truth-telling could be one that fails to maximize the well-being of all participants. Is it possible that some measure of deception is good for us? — Sam Harris

Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country. — Theodore Roosevelt

Someone foreign is our enemy.
And we are the foreign enemy of someone. — Tina Sequeira

As the global expansion of Indian and Chinese restaurants suggests, xenophobia is directed against foreign people, not foreign cultural imports. — Eric Hobsbawm

Human nature provides sufficient distrust of all that is alien, so that there is no need of any artificial supply. — Calvin Coolidge

It is with great satisfaction that I learned of the adoption by consensus of the Durban Declaration against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and the intolerance associated with it — Lionel Jospin

Oh, bullshit. This isn't one of those stories, Avice. One moment of cack-handedness, Captain Cook offends the bloody locals, one slip of the tongue or misuse of sacred cutlery, and bang, he's on the grill. Do you ever think about how self-aggrandising that stuff is? Oh, all those stories pretending to be mea culpas about cultural insensitivity, oops, we said the wrong thing, but they're really all about how ridiculous natives overreact. Avice, we must have made thousands of fuckups like that over the years. Think about it. Just like our visitors did when they first met our lot, on Terre. And for the most part we didn't lose our shit, did we? — China Mieville

She engaged in a few moments of recreational xenophobia, which didn't help at all but did pass the time. Someone — T. Kingfisher

Using money in one's attempt to put an end to poverty is like using a border in one's attempt to put an end to xenophobia. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

. . . Mrs. Arcanum considered foreign parts only marginally less unspeakable than private parts. . . — Terry Pratchett

I'm surprised you haven't come to hate humans," Rose said with hesitation. "I mean, given all that happened to you here. I'm pretty sure assimilating wasn't easy either. You have a sort of foreign look for an American, and Americans are notorious for their xenophobia."

Zita laughed softly. "Me? Hate humans?" She darkly shook her head. "I fought in the Midnight War for thirty years, Rosie. I know what happens when people let hate make decisions for them. — Ash Gray

Xenophobia doesn't benefit anybody unless you're playing high-stakes Scrabble. — Dennis Miller

The world is full of people who think different is synonymous with wrong. — David Levithan

The fact that the Hegnish have absolutely no interest in any people except themselves can also cause offense, or even rage. Foreigners exist. That is all the Hegnish know about them, and all they care to know. They are too polite to say that it is a pity that foreigners exist, but if they had to think about it, they would think so. — Ursula K. Le Guin

That kind of patriotism which consists in hating all other nations ... — Elizabeth Gaskell

I've hated some of them too. Most of them sometimes. And they do think differently, but that's a good thing, isn't it? A hand isn't a f-foot, but I need them both to hunt. — Peadar O'Guilin

In worshipping their nationhood men worship themselves and scorn others, and that is no healthy thing. — C.J. Sansom

Why do elites hate the poor? It's xenophobia. They don't know any poor people - except their off-the-books Brazilian nanny and illegal immigrant cleaning lady from Upper Revolta who don't speak English. — P. J. O'Rourke

Xenophobia looks like becoming the mass ideology of the 20th-century fin-de-siecle . — Eric Hobsbawm

How about this? Hong Kong had been appropriated by British drug pushers in the 1840s. We wanted Chinese silk, porcelain, and spices. The Chinese didn't want our clothes, tools, or salted herring, and who can blame them? They had no demand. Our solution was to make a demand, by getting large sections of the populace addicted to opium, a drug which the Chinese government had outlawed. When the Chinese understandably objected to this arrangement, we kicked the fuck out of them, set up a puppet government in Peking that hung signs on parks saying NO DOGS OR CHINESE, and occupied this corner of their country as an import base. Fucking godawful behavior, when you think about it. And we accuse them of xenophobia. It would be like the Colombians invading Washington in the early twenty-first century and forcing the White House to legalize heroin. And saying, Don't worry, we'll show ourselves out, and take Florida while we're at it, okay? Thanks very much. — David Mitchell

I come by my alarmism honestly. I have learned this custom over the years as I have settled into being a true New Yorker. This is how we welcome foreigners to our shores. Because we are so often frightened by living here, we are annoyed and offended when visitors fail to show the proper signs of terror. So we try to scare the living daylights out of them. — David Rakoff

I wanted to write about racism and xenophobia in 21st Century England and Ireland, but I wanted to do it in an exciting way so that I could reach more readers. Zombies seemed like a good way to do that. — Darren Shan

I think that what Donald Trump is doing, the way in which racism, xenophobia, anti-Muslim belief and the like are being expressed through the campaign of Donald Trump, calls for, I think, a very vigorous and aggressive response to what he's saying. — Michael Eric Dyson

I sometimes think that courage is the thing that you need more than any other thing. It's fear that cripples us. It's fear that accounts for racism, it's fear that accounts for sexism, for xenophobia. — Anna Quindlen

Xenophobia is fairly widespread in Russia. — Alexei Navalny

Mon wants this transition to be as peaceable as possible. That is, of course, a noble goal. And in late nights the chancellor confided in Leia that she is wisely struck by the fear of what happened the first time the parasite of Palpatine squirmed under the skin. How easy it was for him to prey on the anxieties of the galaxy. How simple it was for him to turn system against system by stoking the fires of xenophobia, anger, selfishness. (And here Luke's voice echoes in her mind: The ways and tools of the dark side, Leia.) How do you form an Empire? By stealing a Republic. And how do you steal a Republic? By convincing its people that they cannot govern themselves - that freedom is their enemy and that fear is their ally. Palpatine — Chuck Wendig

The U. S. is becoming more hostile to Black people and other people of color. Racism is running rampant and xenophobia is on the rise — Assata Shakur

In Europe there's an dangerous growth of ultra xenophobia which is pretty threatening to any one who remembers the history of Europe ... and an attack on the remnants of the welfare state. It's hard to interpret the austerity-in-the-midst-of-recession policy as anything other than attack on the social contract. — Noam Chomsky

What is passing for religion in most of the Earth now is its opposite: xenophobia and road rage. — Richard Grossinger

He did not put his feelings down to simple xenophobia. Basically, he hadn't expected the alien to be so completely alien. — Alan Dean Foster