Interpersonal Relationships

"In pious times, ere priest-craft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin; When man, on many, multipli'd his kind, Ere one to one was cursedly confin'd: When Nature prompted, and no Law deni'd Promiscuous use of concubine and bride; Then, Israel's monarch, after Heaven's own heart, His vigorous warmth did variously impart To wives and slaves: and, wide as his command, Scatter'd his Maker's image through the land."

"In the reign of James the Second, It was generally reckoned As a rather serious crime To marry two wives at a time."

"When I fell in love with my second wife, I was twenty-three. She was also studying in England, and though she was an Iranian, that is, from a country where polygamy is the custom, it was hard for me to persuade her to marry me. I didn’t have many arguments except for the two words, »So what, dammit!« No, the idea of divorcing my first wife never went through my head. Not only because she’s my cousin, but because I have a responsibility toward her. Her whole life has been ruined by this absurd marriage to a boy, by the absurd custom in which we’ve been raised. She lives in my house in Larkana; we see each other every so often. She’s almost always alone. She hasn’t even had children—my four children are born of my second mar­riage. I’ve spent little time with her—as soon as I was an adolescent I went to the West to study. A story of injustice. I’ll do everything I can to discourage polygamy—besides it causes no small economic problem. Often the wives are separated in different houses or cities, as in my case. And not everyone can afford it, as I can."

"A house of atonement, or expiatory chapel, fitted with several stools of repentance, as distinguished from monogamy, which has but one."

"As for my two wives, what can I do about it? They married me off at thirteen, to my cousin. I was thirteen and she was twenty-three. I didn’t even know what it meant to have a wife, and when they tried to explain it to me, I went out of my mind with rage. With fury. I didn’t want a wife, I wanted to play cricket. I was very fond of cricket. To calm me down, they had to give me two new cricket bags. When the ceremony was over, I ran off to play cricket. There are so many things I must change in my country! And I was fortunate. They married my playmate off at the age of eleven to a woman of thirty-two. He always said to me, »Lucky you!«"

"A man may marry many wives, for Rabba saith it in lawful to do so, if he can provide for them. Nevertheless, the wise men have given good advice, that a man should not marry more than four wives."

"You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt."

"Among the Indians officers are appointed even for foreigners, whose duty is to see that no foreigner is wronged. Should any of them lose his health, they send physicians to attend him, and take care of him otherwise, and if he dies they bury him, and deliver over such property as he leaves to his relatives. The judge also decides cases in which foreigners are concerned, with the greatest care, and come down sharply on those who take unfair advantage of them."

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."

"Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you, You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,) I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,"

"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment."

"Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place."

"All colors and blends of Americans have somewhat the same tendencies. It's a breed — selected out by accident. And so we're overbrave and overfearful — we're kind and cruel as children. We're overfriendly and at the same time frightened of strangers."

"He had a bitter pain in his heart, for he knew that she was still a stranger to him and his hungry love was destined ever to remain unsatisfied."

"And punishments came upon the sinners not without former signs by the force of thunders: for they suffered justly according to their own wickedness, insomuch as they used a more hard and hateful behaviour toward strangers. For the Sodomites did not receive those, whom they knew not when they came: but these brought friends into bondage, that had well deserved of them. And not only so, but peradventure some respect shall be had of those, because they used strangers not friendly: But these very grievously afflicted them, whom they had received with feastings, and were already made partakers of the same laws with them Therefore even with blindness were these stricken, as those were at the doors of the righteous man: when, being compassed about with horrible great darkness, every one sought the passage of his own doors."

"He will deal harshly by a stranger who has not been himself often a traveller and stranger."

"The stranger has no friend, unless it be a stranger."

"Ants and savages put strangers to death."

"By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent, And what to those we give, to Jove is lent."

"Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares."

"I have been a stranger in a strange land."

"People are strange when you're a stranger."

"As I look around at these strangers in town, I guess the only stranger is me. As I see what they've done to this place that I love, shame is all that I feel."

"People far too easily neglect or abuse us, as soon as we become intimate with them. To live pleasantly, one must almost always remain a stranger in the crowd."

"For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me."

"He wanted them to meet as the completest of strangers — strangers-across-the-seas — all the more strangers because they knew each other already. He wanted them to meet far from their friends and relatives — in a place without a past, without history, free, really free, two people coming together with the utter freedom of strangers."

"But foreign should not be defined in geographical terms. Then it would have no meaning except territorial or tribal patriotism. To me that alone is foreign which is foreign to truth, foreign to Atman."

"We die to each other daily. What we know of other people Is only our memory of the moments During which we knew them. And they have changed since then. To pretend that they and we are the same Is a useful and convenient social convention Which must sometimes broken. We must also remember That at every meeting we are meeting a stranger."

"Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger. Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions."

"The stranger is simply a friend I haven't met yet."

"And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt."

"Farewell to ye all! In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall."

"It's you my love, you who are the stranger."

"I told you when I came I was a stranger."

"The Nordic language recognized four orders of foreignness. The first is the otherlander, or utlanning, the stranger that we recognize as being a human of our world, but of another city or country. The second is the framling - Demosthenes merely drops the accent from the Nordic framling. This is the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another world. The third is the raman, the stranger that we recognize as human, but of another species. The fourth is the true alien, the varelse, which includes all the animals, for with them no conversation is possible. They live, but we cannot guesswhat purposes or causes make them act. They might be intelligent, they might be self-aware, but we cannot know it."

"ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state."

"A stranger is he who has no friend."

"Few prospective procreators consider the asthetic impact of their potential children. But how many more producers of excrement and urine, flatulence, menstrual blood and semen, sweat, mucus, vomit, and pus do we really need? How much more human waste do we need to process? How many more corpses do we need to dispose of? It would be an aesthetic improvement if there were fewer people."

"Look! Nobody witnessed the formidable Burial of your one final dream. Only ingratitude - The Panther - Was your inseparable companion! Get used to the mud that awaits you! Man, on this miserable earth, Lives amidst beasts, and sees an inevitable Necessity to also turn into a beast. Take a match. Light your cigarrete! The kiss, friend, is the eve of the spit. The hand that cuddles also stones. If somebody still pities your suffering, stone this vile hand that cuddles you, Spit on the mouth that kisses you!"

"I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am."

"Humans may exceed other animals in their sapient capacities, but we also surpass other species on our destructiveness. Many animals cause harm, but we are the most lethal species ever to have inhabited our planet. It is revealing that we do not refer to this superlative property in identifying ourselves. There is ample evidence that we are Homo pernicious – the dangerous, destructive human."

"I don't have prejudice, I hate everyone equally."

"Because the world is perfidious, I am going into mourning"

"The world belongs to those who don’t feel. The essential condition for being a practical man is the absence of sensibility. The chief requisite for the practical expression of life is will, since this leads to action. Two things can thwart action – sensibility and analytic thought, the latter of which is just thought with sensibility. All action is by nature the projection of our personality on to the external world, and since the external world is largely and firstly made up of human beings, it follows that this projection of personality is basically a matter of crossing other people’s path, of hindering, hurting or overpowering them, depending on the form our action takes. To act, then, requires a certain incapacity for imagining the personalities of others, their joys and sufferings. Sympathy leads to paralysis. The man of action regards the external world as composed exclusively of inert matter – either intrinsically inert, like a stone he walks on or kicks out of his path, or inert like a human being who couldn’t resist him and thus might as well be a stone as a man since, like a stone, he was walked on or kicked out of the way. The best example of the practical man is the military strategist, in whom extreme concentration of action is joined to its extreme importance. All life is war, and the battle is life’s synthesis. The strategist is a man who plays with lives like the chess player with chess pieces. What would become of the strategist if he thought about how each of his moves brings night to a thousand homes and grief to three thousand hearts? What would become of the world if we were human? If man really felt, there would be no civilization. Art gives shelter to the sensibility that action was obliged to forget. Art is Cinderella, who stayed at home because that’s how it had to be."

"Timon will to the woods; where he shall find The unkindest beast more kinder than mankind. The gods confound — hear me, you good gods all — The Athenians both within and out that wall! And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow To the whole race of mankind, high and low! Amen."

"I am misanthropos, and hate mankind For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog That I might love thee something."

"...but first there is a certain experience we must be careful to avoid...we must not become misologues, as people become misanthropes. There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse. Misology and misanthropy arise in the same way. Misanthropy comes when a man without knowledge or skill has placed great trust in someone and believes him to be altogether truthful, sound and trustworthy; then, a short time afterwards he finds him to be wicked and unreliable, and then this happens in another case; when one has frequently had that experience, especially with those whom one believed to be one's closest friends, then, in the end, after many blows, one comes to hate all men and to believe that no one is sound in any way at all...This is a shameful state of affairs... and obviously due to an attempt to have human relations without any skill in human affairs."

"Human life is nothing but a perpetual illusion; there is nothing but mutual deception and flattery. No one talks about us in our presence as he would in our absence. Human relations are only based on this mutual deception; and few friendships would survive if everyone knew what his friend said about him behind his back, even though he spoke sincerely and dispassionately. Man is therefore nothing but disguise, falsehood and hypocrisy, both in himself and with regard to others. He does not want to be told the truth. He avoids telling it to others, and all these tendencies, so remote from justice and reason, are naturally rooted in his heart."

"My hate is general, I detest all men; Some because they are wicked and do evil, Others because they tolerate the wicked, Refusing them the active vigorous scorn Which vice should stimulate in virtuous minds."

"I am now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself."