Historical Animosity Quotes

We are asking the nations of Europe between whom rivers of blood have flowed, to forget the feuds of a thousand years.

The new history is really ancient history newly discovered. Journalists are taking crash courses in the blood-drenched background of Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, North Ossetians, Armenians and Azerbaijanis.

I come from a fragmented society. A country proud to serve as a bridge between Europe and Asia yet unable to bridge its own differences.

The cause of their wars is not for lust of dominion, nor of extending their frontiers, no for inordinate covetousness, but for some ancient enmity which in by-gone times arose amongst them: and when asked why they made war, they knew not any other reason to give than that they did so to avenge the death of their ancestors, or of their parents:

Poles have a mistrust of the West and an even deeper mistrust of the East.

Anyone born and bred in Northern Ireland can't be too optimistic.

The Arab world's problems are a problem of the Arab mind, and the name for that problem is anti-Semitism.

The U.S. cannot force Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds to make peace or to act for the common good. They have been in conflict for 1,400 years.

Many in China find it perplexing that the U.S. and Russian perceptions are still so heavily influenced by the Cold War.

Is Turkey one of the Ayrab countries with which you don't get on very well?

France is, and must always remain, England’s greatest danger.

We always have been, we are, and I hope that we always shall be, detested in France.

Europe has just too many countries who have hated each other for too long to pull it apart and very little to hold it together.

Two children of same cruel parent look at one another and see in each other the image of the cruel parent or the image of their past oppressor. This is very much the case between Jew and Arab: It's a conflict between two victims.

Deep-seated are the wounds of civil brawls.

It took 200 years for the Crusaders to create [this] Muslim fanaticism. It was the exact imitation of Christian intolerance.

Why does the world dislike Russia? I do not think that we are unloved or considered to be ignorant.

Unconditional love is a lofty ideal, but unconditional hate is a fact well documented by history.

In the Middle East, the conflict today is a matter of generations and not of cultures.

Iranians hate Arabs. They're a fairly well-educated population and they have centuries of experience with self-government.

The French couldn't hate us any more unless we helped 'em out in another war.

… the idea of nationality, has caused more damage to the economic system of Europe, however extraordinary that may seem, than the idea of plunder… The stumbling block is the difficulty of separating racial groups in Europe. Apart from the large countries where war, often prolonged for centuries, has cemented the nations, the races which fought for the possession of the continent--Latin, Teuton and Slav--have remained in conflict. They are still encamped upon the ground, always in a state of hostility, yet subject to interpenetration.

Most people have no imagination. If they could imagine the sufferings of others, they would not make them suffer so. What separated a German mother from a French mother?

[The tension] between the Christians and Muslims goes back to the Crusades, doesn't it? It's too easy to blame everything on one guy. These are unpredictable, dangerous times, and I don't think that anyone really knows quite what to do.

A person from Northern Ireland is naturally cautious.