Strangers

Strangers are people whom one does not know, and may in particular be outsiders, foreigners, or newcomers.

Alphabetized by author or source.

• A stranger is he who has no friend.
  • Ali, Nahj al-Balagha, Letter 31: Advice to one of his sons after returning from the Battle of Siffin

• ALIEN, n. An American sovereign in his probationary state.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).

• 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.
  • Orson Scott Card ‘’Speaker for the Dead’’ p.25

• I told you when I came I was a stranger.
  • Leonard Cohen in "The Stranger Song" (1966)

• It's you my love, you who are the stranger.
  • Leonard Cohen in "The Stranger Song" (1966)

• Farewell to ye all! In the land of the stranger I rise or I fall.
  • Davy Crockett (att.), Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas (1836), Ch. 2

• Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
  • Deuteronomy 10:19, New King James Version

• The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower.
  • Deuteronomy 28:43, New King James Version

• The stranger is simply a friend I haven't met yet.
  • Catherine Doherty, Poustinia (1975), Ch. 15

• Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.
  Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.
  • T. S. Eliot, The Rock (1934)

• 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.
  • T. S. Eliot, The Cocktail Party (1949)

• 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.
  • Ram Swarup quoted in : Sita Ram Goel. How I Became a Hindu (1982, enlarged 1993) ISBN 81-85990-05-0 (ch. 7) [1]

• 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.
  • Amitav Ghosh, ; The Shadow Lines (1988), p. 144

• 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.
  • Jesus, in Matthew 25:35–36 (KJV)

• 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.
  • Adolf Freiherr Knigge, Über den Umgang mit Menschen ["On Human Relations"] (1788)

• 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.
  • Jeff Lynne, in "The Way Life's Meant to Be", on Time (1981)

• People are strange when you're a stranger.
  • Jim Morrison, "People Are Strange", Strange Days (1967)

• I have been a stranger in a strange land.
  • Moses, Exodus 2:22 (KJV)
  • I have been a stranger in a foreign land.
    • Jewish Publication Society translation (1985; 1999)

• You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
  • Moses, Exodus 22:21 NASB

• Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
  • Paul of Tarsus, Hebrews 13:2 (KJV)

• By Jove the stranger and the poor are sent,
  And what to those we give, to Jove is lent.
  • Alexander Pope, The Odyssey of Homer, Book VI, line 247

• Ants and savages put strangers to death.
  • Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (1950), "The Functions of a Teacher"

• The stranger has no friend, unless it be a stranger.
  • Saadi, Gulistan (1258), tr. James Ross, Ch. 3, story 28

• He will deal harshly by a stranger who has not been himself often a traveller and stranger.
  • Saadi, Gulistan (1258), tr. James Ross, Ch. 3, story 28

• 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.
  • W. Somerset Maugham, Collected short stories 1, "The pool", p. 127

• 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.
  • John Steinbeck, East of Eden (1952)

• Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place.
  • Tecumseh, attributed by Lee Sulzman, Shawnee History

• 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.
  • George Washington, letter to the members of the Volunteer Association and other Inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland who have lately arrived in the City of New York (December 2, 1783), John C. Fitzpatrick, ed., The Writings of George Washington (1938), vol. 27, p. 254.

• 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,
  • Walt Whitman, "To a Stranger" (1860; 1867), in Leaves of Grass

• I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.
  • Tennessee Williams; said by his character Blanche DuBois, in A Streetcar Named Desire (1947)

• 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.
  • Megasthenes, quoted in Ibn Warraq - Defending the West [2007]

• Hospitality