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Foreignness Quotes

Browse 11 quotes about Foreignness.

Foreignness Quotes

“You already know that the first thing that makes you foreign to a place is to be born poor in it; you don't need to emigrate to America to feel what you already felt when you were ten, looking up at the rickety concrete roof above your head and knowing that one more bad typhoon would bring it down to crush your bones and the bones of all your siblings sleeping next to you; or selling fruit by the side of the road to people who made sure to never really look at you, made sure not to touch your hands when they put the money in it. You've been foreign all your life. When you finally leave, all you're hoping for is a more bearable kind of foreignness.”

PovertyPlaceForeignness
Book:America Is Not the Heart
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“There is something wonderful in being a stranger, in being foreign, something to be relished, something as alluring as sweets. It is good not to be able to understand a language, not to know the customs, to glide like a spirit among others who are distant and unrecognizable. Then a particular kind of wisdom awakens—an ability to surmise, to grasp the things that aren't obvious. Cleverness and acumen come about. A person who is a stranger gains a new point of view, becomes, whether he likes it or not, a particular type of sage. Who was it who convinced us that being comfortable and familiar was so great? Only foreigners can truly understand the way things work.”

StrangenessForeignness
Book:The Books of Jacob
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“Traveling is not only the art of getting lost, but true travelers, in a sense, never return home. If they do return, they never see home the same way they did before leaving. They begin to see the foreignness of home after experiencing being at home in other foreign lands. Traveling, I have learned, is not all about the touristy and the beautiful places as we see them in tourist guides. Traveling can be frightening in many ways, most important of which is the realization of how much sadness, pain, impoverishment, and despair exist next to, behind, under, over, and above the mountains, the blue lakes, the pristine beaches, the highly rated hotels and restaurants, the well-designed museums and historic and cultural sites, the fancy shops that, in many places, most locals can neither access nor afford. There are places so sad that the fanciest building one can see there is the airport! There are other places where the airports are run down and depressing, but once you step out of the airport, you discover that such places are full of life, meaning, and physical and spiritual nourishment. There are countries, namely the developed countries, where everything looks shiny and perfect, yet as soon as you enter, you encounter so much loneliness, depression, hate, racism, and lifelessness. Things are never as they appear at first glance. Traveling leaves us with more questions than answers – it is so bittersweet." [From “Can We Travel Without Being Tourists?” published on CounterPunch on March 15, 2024]”

CultureDiscoveryTouristsTourismTravelingCultural DifferencesTravelersNarrow MindednessForeignnessWorldview And Perception
Author:Louis Yako
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“So the secret of philosophy may not be to know oneself, nor to know where one is going, but rather to go where the other is going; not to dream oneself, but rather to dream what others dream; not to believe oneself, but rather to believe in those who do believe: to give priority to all determinants from elsewhere. Whether they are legible or not, decipherable or not, is of no consequence - the main thing is to embrace the foreign form of any event, any object, any fortuitous being, because in any case you will never know who you are. Today, when people have lost their shadows, it is of the utmost importance to be followed by someone; today, when everyone is losing their own tracks, it is of the utmost urgency that someone be on your tracks: even if he wipes them out and makes you disappear as a result, at least your disappearance will have occurred in a collusive mode; at least a symbolic form of obligation, an enigmatic form of conjunction and disjunction, will have been brought into play.”

PhilosophyCollusionForeignnessSchlemihl
Book:The Transparency of Evil: Essays in Extreme Phenomena
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“We learn from traveling that it makes a huge difference to simply acknowledge and greet each other; to ask whenever possible or appropriate, whether someone is alright; and most importantly to foil the plans and intentions of fear and warmongers using every medium and platform to get us to distrust, hate, and be afraid of each other, or to beware of strangers." [From “Can We Travel Without Being Tourists?” published on CounterPunch on March 15, 2024]”

HateCultureRacismTouristsTravelingStrangersOthernessTravelersForeignnessFearmongering
Author:Louis Yako
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