Sayings about Strangeness & Strangers
The stranger has big eyes but he doesn’t see anything. ~ Ivorian Proverb
Better a devil you know than a hundred strangers. ~ South American Proverb
Men don’t build on strange ground. ~ Yiddish Proverbs
There are three things that have to be done quickly: burying the dead, opening the door for a stranger, and fixing your daughter’s wedding. ~ Iranian Proverbs
Go to friends for advice; to women for pity; to strangers for charity; to relatives for nothing. ~ Spanish Proverbs
Dear God: You do such wonderful things for complete strangers; why not for me? ~ Yiddish Proverbs
The tears of strangers are only water. ~ Russian Proverbs
Dine with a stranger but save your love for your family. ~ Ethiopian Proverbs
I against my brother. My brother and I against our cousin. My brother, my cousin and I against the neighbors. All of us against the stranger. ~ Bedouin Proverbs
Eat and drink with your relatives, but do business with strangers. ~ Italian Proverbs
You have a lot of friends if you have money; otherwise there are only strangers. ~ Nepalese Proverbs
I’m human; nothing that is human is strange to me. A good run is better than a bad fight. ~ Polish Proverbs
Live together like brothers and do business like strangers. ~ Saudi Arabian Proverb
The house is our father’s and the strangers came to kick us out. ~ Palestinian Proverbs
I have been a stranger in a strange land. ~ Bible
Let praise you and not your own mouth, a stranger and not your own lips. ~ Bible
The hand of the stranger is heavy. ~ Basque Proverbs
You may boast to strangers, but tell the truth to your own people. ~ Croatian Proverbs
Advice is a stranger; if he’s welcome he stays for the night; if not, he leaves the same day. ~ Malagasy Proverb
The day your horse dies and your money’s gone, your relatives change into strangers. ~ Chinese Proverb
A foolish man may be known by six things: Anger without cause, speech without profit, change without progress, inquiry without object, putting trust in a stranger, and mistaking foes for friends.~ Saudi Arabian Proverbs
May good luck be your friend in whatever you do and may trouble be always a stranger to you. ~ Irish Blessings
Quotations about Strangers & Strangeness
There is no loneliness greater than the loneliness of a failure. The failure is a stranger in his own house. ~ Eric Hoffer
The day your horse dies and your money’s gone, your relatives change into strangers. ~ Author Unknown
What a strange thing man is; and what a stranger thing woman. ~ Lord Byron
America, where people do not inquire of a stranger, “What is he?” But “What can he do?” ~ Author Unknown
Strange to say, the luminous world is the invisible world; the luminous world is that which we do not see. Our eyes of flesh see only night. ~ Victor Hugo
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t. ~ Mark Twain
There are German songs which can make a stranger to the language cry. ~ Mark Twain
Every time a man unburdens his heart to a stranger he reaffirms the love that unites humanity. ~ Germaine Greer
It is strange what contempt men have for the joys that are offered them freely. ~ George Duhamel
If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world. ~ Francis Bacon
Don’t borrow money from a neighbor or a friend, but of a stranger where, paying for it you shall hear of it no more. ~ Lord Burleigh
Politics doesn’t make strange bedfellows – marriage does. ~ Groucho Marx
It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely. ~ Albert Einstein
Honest criticism is hard to take, especially from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger. ~ Franklin P. Jones
If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, don’t accept because you will lose one friend; on the other hand, if two strangers come with the same request, accept because you will gain one friend. ~ St. Augustine
The sensitivity of men to small matters, and their indifference to great ones, indicates a strange inversion. ~ Blaise Pascal
If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. Don’t be surly at home, then go out in the street and start grinning ‘Good morning’ at total strangers. ~ Maya Angelou
I, a stranger and afraid, in a world I never made. ~ A. E. Housman
When one is a stranger to oneself then one is estranged from others too. ~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh
We have a strange and wonderful relationship – he’s strange and I’m wonderful. ~ Mike Ditka
How strange this fear of death is! We are never frightened at a sunset. ~ George MacDonald
Nothing, perhaps, is strange, once you have accepted life itself, the great strange business which includes all lesser strangeness. ~ Rose Macaulay
It is a strange desire, to seek power, and to lose liberty; or to seek power over others, and to lose power over a man’s self. ~ Francis Bacon
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his whole universe for a vast practical joke. ~ Herman Melville
When the wine goes in, strange things come out. ~ Johann Friedrich Von Schiller
Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache. ~ Gilbert K. Chesterton
It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him. ~ Goethe
They do certainly give very strange, and newfangled, names to diseases. ~ Plato
Strange is our situation here on earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. ~ Albert Einstein
Strangers are just friends I haven’t met yet. ~ Will Rogers
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. ~ Francis Bacon
Anyone who knows a strange fact shares in its singularity. ~ Jean Genet
I work in a strange business, and trust is a word that’s not even in the vocabulary. ~ Kim Basinger
He whom God has touched will always be a being apart: he is, whatever he may do, a stranger among men; he is marked by a sign. ~ Ernest Renan
The only living life is in the past and future — the present is an interlude — strange interlude in which we call on past and future to bear witness that we are living. ~ Eugene O’Neill
Strange as it may seem, no amount of learning can cure stupidity, and formal education positively fortifies it. ~ Stephen Vizinczey
What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire. ~ Blaise Pascal
Where a blood relation sobs, an intimate friend should choke up, a distant acquaintance should sigh, a stranger should merely fumble sympathetically with his handkerchief.~ Mark Twain
Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listens, then everybody disagrees. ~ Boris Marshalov
If it weren’t for marriage, men and women would have to fight with total strangers. ~ Author Unknown
I have always depended on the kindness of strangers. ~ Tennessee Williams
I do desire we may be better strangers. ~ William Shakespeare
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. ~ William Shakespeare
‘Tis strange what a man may do and a woman yet think him an angel. ~ William M. Thackeray
There are strange flowers of reason to match each error of the senses. ~ Louis Aragon
It is disgraceful to live as a stranger in one’s country, and be an alien in any matter that affects our welfare. ~ Author Unknown
On what strange stuff Ambition feeds! ~ Eliza Cook
The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends. ~ Shirley MacLaine
Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance? ~ William Shakespeare
Never fight fair with a stranger, boy. You’ll never get out of the jungle that way. ~ Arthur Miller
Life is strange. Every so often a good man wins. ~ Frank Dane
It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger. ~ Samuel Johnson
All things must change to something new, to something strange. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
We that are true lovers run into strange capers. ~ William Shakespeare
A single event can awaken within us a stranger totally unknown to us. ~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The moment one accosts a stranger or is accosted by him is above all in this life the moment of drama… Whoever we meet watches us intently at the quick, strange moment of meeting, to see whether we are disposed to be friendly. ~ Haniel Long
One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends. ~ Jean Cocteau
Truth is always strange, stranger than fiction. ~ Lord Byron
It’s all right for a perfect stranger to kiss your hand as long as he’s perfect. ~ Mae West
We cannot possibly let ourselves get frozen into regarding everyone we do not know as an absolute stranger. ~ Albert Schweitzer
When strangers start acting like neighbors… communities are reinvigorated. ~ Ralph Nader
Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody. ~ Samuel Pepys
Education helps one cease being intimidated by strange situations. ~ Maya Angelou
Be true to your own act and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant to break the monotony of a decorous age. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day. ~ Author Unknown
There is nothing so strange and so unbelievable that it has not been said by one philosopher or another. ~ Rene Descartes
Money is a strange business. People who haven’t got it aim it strongly. People who have are full of troubles. ~ Ayrton Senna