“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.”

Last update April 2, 2026. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it." by Rudyard Kipling?

Rudyard Kipling200

English short-story writer, poet, and novelist 1865–1936

Related quotes

“The wealth of the country was robbed and wasted in the interest of imperialism and the foreigner. In fact, everything in this country was exploited for the foreigner. The son of the people was living in miserable conditions. He was humiliated and insulted. Had we been patient for a time, it would have only been for the greatest explosion, as our people exploded with the Army in one day and destroyed the idols who were following the foreigners.”

Abd al-Karim Qasim (1914–1963) Prime Minister of Iraq

The historical extempore speech at the Reserve Officers' College (1959)

“Body odour (known also as scent of the immortals) is a disgusting condition with an awful, nauseating smell.”

Gao Xingjian book Soul Mountain

Source: Soul Mountain (1989), ch. 1, p. 6

“a writer is a foreign country”

Marguerite Duras (1914–1996) French writer and film director

“The real job is not to understand foreign culture but to understand our own.”

Edward T. Hall book The Silent Language

The Silent Language (1959)

“All of life is a foreign country.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Letter to John Clellon Holmes (24 June 1949), published in The Beat Vision: A Primary Sourcebook (1987) edited by Arthur Knight and Kit Knight, page 93.

“Half the trouble about the modern man is that he is educated to understand foreign languages and misunderstand foreigners.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Source: The Autobiography of G.K. Chesterton http://books.google.com/books?id=9_m6AAAAIAAJ&q=%22Half+the+trouble+about+the+modern+man+is+that+he+is+educated+to+understand+foreign+languages+and+misunderstand+foreigners%22&pg=PA322#v=onepage (1936)

“Scotland will not be a foreign country after independence, any more than Ireland, Northern Ireland, England or Wales could ever be “foreign countries” to Scotland.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Speech in Carlisle. http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/04/alex-salmonds-st-georges-day-speech-full-text (23 April 2014)

“Private travel into foreign countries can be requested without conditions (passports or family connections). Permission will be granted instantly. Permanent relocations can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR into the FRG or Berlin (West).”

Günter Schabowski (1929–2015) German politician

Privatreisen nach dem Ausland können ohne Vorliegen von Voraussetzungen (Reiseanlässe und Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse) beantragt werden. Die Genehmigungen werden kurzfristig erteilt. Ständige Ausreisen können über alle Grenzübergangsstellen der DDR zur BRD beziehungsweise zu Berlin (West) erfolgen.
Press conference, 9 November 1989.

“Such a condition will likewise give opportunity to devote our surplus wealth, not to the payment of high taxes, but to the financing of the needs of other nations. Our country has already through private sources recognized the requirements in this direction and has made large advances to foreign governments and foreign enterprises for the purpose of reestablishing their public credit and their private industry.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ways to Peace (1926)

“By this point in HIS first term President Obama already had a Nobel Prize. All President Trump has is a train station in a foreign country--not even a big country. Just a little one. Barely the size of Connecticut. Sad.”

Robert P. George (1955) American legal scholar

Twitter post https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/946049282439876609 (27 December 2017) <br class="br">2017

“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Rudyard Kipling200

Related quotes

Related topics