Quotes about welcome
page 5

Alex Salmond photo
Andy Partridge photo

“People will always be tempted
to wipe their feet
on anything with 'welcome'
written on it.”

Andy Partridge (1953) British musician

"Snowman"
English Settlement (1982)

Horace photo

“Think to yourself that every day is your last; the hour to which you do not look forward will come as a welcome surprise.”
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum. grata superveniet, quae non sperabitur hora.

Book I, epistle iv, line 13–14
Epistles (c. 20 BC and 14 BC)

Craig Ferguson photo

“Welcome back, my filthy pigeons.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

citation needed
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), "Welcome Back" variations

Roy Jenkins photo
Ron Paul photo
Joe Hockey photo

“Please send to Australia … rain welcome party will be arranged”

Joe Hockey (1965) Australian politician

Referring to floods in India which killed over 300 people. Quoted in "Joe Hockey under fire for flippancy on fatal Indian floods " in The New Daily (16 August 2018) https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2018/08/16/joe-hockey-floods-twitter/.

George Carlin photo

“We are on a nice downward glide. I call it circling the drain … And the circles get smaller and smaller and faster and faster, if you watch the sink empty… Huish! And we'll be gone. And that's fine. I welcome it. I wish I could live 1000 years to watch it happen. From a distance — so I can see it all.”

George Carlin (1937–2008) American stand-up comedian

Archive of American Television http://www.emmytvlegends.org/interviews/people/george-carlin, from one of Carlin's final interviews (2008)
Interviews, Television Appearances

Adolf Eichmann photo

“The war with the Soviet Union began in June 1941, I think. And I believe it was two months later, or maybe three, that Heydrich sent for me. I reported. He said to me: "The Führer has ordered physical extermination." These were his words. And as though wanting to test their effect on me, he made a long pause, which was not at all his way. I can still remember that. In the first moment, I didn't grasp the implications, because he chose his words so carefully. But then I understood. I didn't say anything, what could I say? Because I'd never thought of a … of such a thing, of that sort of violent solution. … Anyway, Heydrich said: "Go and see Globocnik, the Führer has already given him instructions. Take a look and see how he's getting on with his program. I believe he's using Russian anti-tank trenches for exterminating the Jews." As ordered, I went to Lublin, located the headquarters of SS and Police Commander Globocnik, and reported to the Gruppenführer. I told him Heydrich had sent me, because the Führer had ordered the physical extermination of the Jews. … Globocnik sent for a certain Sturmbannführer Höfle, who must have been a member of his staff. We went from Lublin to, I don't remember what the place was called, I get them mixed up, I couldn't say if it was Treblinka or some other place. There were patches of woods, sort of, and the road passed through — a Polish highway. On the right side of the road there was an ordinary house, that's where the men who worked there lived. A captain of the Ordnungspolizei welcomed us. A few workmen were still there. The captain, which surprised me, had taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, somehow he seemed to have joined in the work. They were building little wooden shacks, two, maybe three of them; they looked like two- or three-room cottages. Höfle told the police captain to explain the installation to me. And then he started in. He had a, well, let's say, a vulgar, uncultivated voice. Maybe he drank. He spoke some dialect from the southwestern corner of Germany, and he told me how he had made everything airtight. It seems they were going to hook up a Russian submarine engine and pipe the exhaust into the houses and the Jews inside would be poisoned.
I was horrified. My nerves aren't strong enough … I can't listen to such things… such things, without their affecting me. Even today, if I see someone with a deep cut, I have to look away. I could never have been a doctor. I still remember how I visualized the scene and began to tremble, as if I'd been through something, some terrible experience. The kind of thing that happens sometimes and afterwards you start to shake. Then I went to Berlin and reported to the head of the Security Police.”

Adolf Eichmann (1906–1962) German Nazi SS-Obersturmbannführer

Source: Eichmann Interrogated (1983), p. 75 - 76.

John Galsworthy photo
Amir Taheri photo
Priscilla Presley photo

“Yes. I came to Washington to lobby Senators and Congressmen to co-sponsor in support of the PAST Act and I'm hoping by making this public people will join me to help me get this bill passed. Links are available for them to contact their Congressman saying they support the PAST Act. That's all they have to do. You would think this is a no-brainer, that this would pass but there IS opposition. The law was passed in 1970 to stop soring but Horse Industry (HIOs) found loopholes and continued soring. USDA is charged with enforcement of the Horse Protection Act, but as the result of a 1976 amendment to the act, the USDA has for decades certified the horse industry organization to conduct the majority of inspections at horse shows. This self regulation scheme has failed miserably and has to be abolished. USDA inspectors are threatened by exhibitors at horse shows and must be frequently accompanied by security. If they had nothing to hide (like covering the scarred legs with paint or taking off other paraphernalia when USDA inspectors are around) why aren't they welcomed? That's why being their own inspectors is not working.”

Priscilla Presley (1945) actress and businesswoman from the United States and former wife of Elvis Presley

Priscilla Presley On The Cause She's So Passionate About And The First Time Elvis Took Her Breath Away http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pat-gallagher/priscilla-presley_b_4933783.html, 12 March, 2014.

George W. Bush photo
Sergey Lavrov photo

“We discussed this issue. We welcome steps Pakistan and India have taken on confidence-building measures. Both countries are capable of settling their issues on their own without any foreign assistance”

Sergey Lavrov (1950) Russian politician and Foreign Minister

Lavrov says no to Russian role in resolving Kashmir issue, (October 2012). http://indrus.in/articles/2012/10/05/lavrov_says_no_to_russian_role_in_resolving_kashmir_issue_18141.html

Flavor Flav photo
Wassily Kandinsky photo

“.. the works of Mozart. They create a welcome pause amidst the storms of our inner life, a vision of consolation and hope, but we hear them like sounds of another, vanished and essential unfamiliar age. Clashing discords, loss of equilibrium..”

Wassily Kandinsky (1866–1944) Russian painter

Quote from: On the Spiritual in Art, 1911; as cited in Schönberg and Kandinsky: An Historic Encounter, by Klaus Kropfinger; edited by Konrad Boehmer; published by Routledge (imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informal company), 2003, p. 17
1910 - 1915

Garry Kasparov photo
George W. Bush photo
Benjamin Franklin photo
Raymond Poincaré photo
Cesar Chavez photo
Craig Ferguson photo

“Welcome back, my cheeky wee monkeys.”

Craig Ferguson (1962) Scottish-born American television host, stand-up comedian, writer, actor, director, author, producer and voice a…

citation needed
The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson (2005–2014), "Welcome Back" variations

János Esterházy photo

“It is generally mentioned here, that Jews should be excluded from economic life as soon as possible. It seems that the Slovak government performs real and rapid measures to achieve this goal. Honorable Assembly! We are delighted to welcome it.”

János Esterházy (1901–1957) Czechoslovak member of Czechoslovak national parliament, russian nation politician and hungary nation polit…

About anti-Semitic measures to exclude Jews from economic and social life. Parliamentary speech on October 8, 1940.
Persecution of Jews

Josefa Iloilo photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo
Mark Rowlands photo

“Even if vegetarian dishes are less palatable than meat-based dishes, and it is not clear that they are, we have to weigh up humans' loss of certain pleasures of the palate against what the animals we eat have to give up because of our predilection for meat. Most obviously, of course, they have to give up their lives, and all the opportunities for the pursuing of interests and satisfaction of preferences that go with this. For most of the animals we eat, in fact, death may not be the greatest of evils. They are forced to live their short lives in appalling and barbaric conditions, and undergo atrocious treatment. Death for many of these animals is a welcome release. When you compare what human beings would have to 'suffer' should vegetarianism become a widespread practice with what the animals we eat have to suffer given that it is not, then if one were to make a rational and self-interested choice in the original position, it is clear what this choice would be. If one did not know whether one was going to be a human or an animal preyed on by humans, the rational choice would surely be to opt for a world where vegetarianism was a widespread human practice and where, therefore, there was no animal husbandry industry. What one stands to lose as a human is surely inconsequential compared to what one stands to lose as a cow, or pig, or lamb.”

Mark Rowlands (1962) British philosopher

Animal Rights: Moral Theory and Practice https://books.google.it/books?id=bFYYDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA0 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd ed. 2009), pp. 164-165.

Koenraad Elst photo
Robert Wilson Lynd photo

“We welcome almost any break in the monotony of things, and a man has only to murder a series of wives in a new way to become known to millions of people who have never heard of Homer.”

Robert Wilson Lynd (1879–1949) Irish writer

The New Statesman, 22 October 1921 http://books.google.com/books?id=2UEyAQAAMAAJ&q=%22We+welcome+almost+any+break+in+the+monotony+of+things+and+a+man+has+only+to+murder+a+series+of+wives+in+a+new+way+to+become+known+to+millions+of+people+who+have+never+heard+of+Homer%22&pg=PA70#v=onepage

Bram Stoker photo
Jesse Ventura photo
John F. Kennedy photo
Eric Hobsbawm photo
Frederick Douglass photo

“And here I hold that a liberal and brotherly welcome to all who are likely to come to the United States is the only wise policy which this nation can adopt. It has been thoughtfully observed that every nation, owing to its peculiar character and composition, has a definite mission in the world. What that mission is, and what policy is best adapted to assist in its fulfillment, is the business of its people and its statesmen to know, and knowing, to make a noble use of this knowledge. I need not stop here to name or describe the missions of other or more ancient nationalities. Our seems plain and unmistakable. Our geographical position, our relation to the outside world, our fundamental principles of government, world-embracing in their scope and character, our vast resources, requiring all manner of labor to develop them, and our already existing composite population, all conspire to one grand end, and that is, to make us the perfect national illustration of the unity and dignity of the human family that the world has ever seen. In whatever else other nations may have been great and grand, our greatness and grandeur will be found in the faithful application of the principle of perfect civil equality to the people of all races and of all creeds. We are not only bound to this position by our organic structure and by our revolutionary antecedents, but by the genius of our people. Gathered here from all quarters of the globe, by a common aspiration for national liberty as against caste, divine right govern and privileged classes, it would be unwise to be found fighting against ourselves and among ourselves, it would be unadvised to attempt to set up any one race above another, or one religion above another, or prescribe any on account of race, color or creed.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1860s, Our Composite Nationality (1869)

William Shenstone photo

“Whoe'er has traveled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome, at an inn.”

William Shenstone (1714–1763) English gardener

Written at an Inn at Henley (1758), st. 6. Compare: " From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,— Path, motive, guide, original, and end", Samuel Johnson, Motto to the Rambler, No. 7

Stephen Colbert photo
Charmaine Yoest photo
Enoch Powell photo

“Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see.

The most perfect, and the most dangerous, example of this process is the subject miscalled, and deliberately miscalled, 'race'. The people of this country are told that they must feel neither alarm nor objection to a West Indian, African and Asian population which will rise to several millions being introduced into this country. If they do, they are 'prejudiced', 'racialist'... A current situation, and a future prospect, which only a few years ago would have appeared to everyone not merely intolerable but frankly incredible, has to be represented as if welcomed by all rational and right-thinking people. The public are literally made to say that black is white. Newspapers like the Sunday Times denounce it as 'spouting the fantasies of racial purity' to say that a child born of English parents in Peking is not Chinese but English, or that a child born of Indian parents in Birmingham is not English but Indian. It is even heresy to assert the plain fact that the English are a white nation. Whether those who take part know it or not, this process of brainwashing by repetition of manifest absurdities is a sinister and deadly weapon. In the end, it renders the majority, who are marked down to be the victims of violence or revolution or tyranny, incapable of self-defence by depriving them of their wits and convincing them that what they thought was right is wrong. The process has already gone perilously far, when political parties at a general election dare not discuss a subject which results from and depends on political action and which for millions of electors transcends all others in importance; or when party leaders can be mesmerised into accepting from the enemy the slogans of 'racialist' and 'unChristian' and applying them to lifelong political colleagues...

In the universities, we are told that education and the discipline ought to be determined by the students, and that the representatives of the students ought effectively to manage the institutions. This is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense which it is already obligatory for academics and journalists, politicians and parties, to accept and mouth upon pain of verbal denunciation and physical duress.

We are told that the economic achievement of the Western countries has been at the expense of the rest of the world and has impoverished them, so that what are called the 'developed' countries owe a duty to hand over tax-produced 'aid' to the governments of the undeveloped countries. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but it is nonsense with which the people of the Western countries, clergy and laity, but clergy especially—have been so deluged and saturated that in the end they feel ashamed of what the brains and energy of Western mankind have done, and sink on their knees to apologise for being civilised and ask to be insulted and humiliated.

Then there is the 'civil rights' nonsense. In Ulster we are told that the deliberate destruction by fire and riot of areas of ordinary property is due to the dissatisfaction over allocation of council houses and opportunities for employment. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that has not prevented the Parliament and government of the United Kingdom from undermining the morale of civil government in Northern Ireland by imputing to it the blame for anarchy and violence.

Most cynically of all, we are told, and told by bishops forsooth, that communist countries are the upholders of human rights and guardians of individual liberty, but that large numbers of people in this country would be outraged by the spectacle of cricket matches being played here against South Africans. It is nonsense—manifest, arrant nonsense; but that did not prevent a British Prime Minister and a British Home Secretary from adopting it as acknowledged fact.”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

The "enemy within" speech during the 1970 general election campaign; speech to the Turves Green Girls School, Northfield, Birmingham (13 June 1970), from Still to Decide (Eliot Right Way Books, 1972), pp. 36-37.
1970s

Donald J. Trump photo

“Every believer departing this old earth …immediately transitions into heaven and is welcomed home by Jesus himself.”

Paul P. Enns (1937) American theologian

Source: Heaven Revealed (Moody, 2011), p. 53

David Icke photo

“Hitler's Europe Yes, welcome to Hitler's Europe… Come on, human race - for our children's sake if not our own. This is wakey, wakey time.”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

Source The European Spider's Web, in Bridge of Love Magazine - May 1997

Anni-Frid Lyngstad photo

“The moment on the town hall balcony was very heartfelt and I was moved to tears by the fantastic welcome from all the people in the street looking up on us where we stood. We felt like royalty at that moment, waving to them all down there.”

Anni-Frid Lyngstad (1945) Swedish female singer

What Made Australians The World's Most Feverish ABBA Fans? by Neil McMahon, published by The Sydney Morning Herald. 17 February 2017 http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/what-made-australians-the-worlds-most-feverish-abba-fans-20170215-gue00r.html
Sydney Morning Herald interview (2017)

Joseph Massad photo

“We welcome folks in Cactus Center if they've got an honest lay;
If their game ain't too durn crooked, we never stop the play;
But a get-rich-quicker blew in, with a game we did n't like,
So we did n't waste the minutes in invitin' him to hike.”

Arthur Chapman (poet) (1873–1935) American poet and newspaper columnist

Discipline in Cactus Center http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#Discipline, st. 1.
Cactus Center http://www.cowboypoetry.com/ac.htm#ccbk (1921)

Enoch Powell photo
Muhammad bin Tughluq photo

“During Muslim rule in India, foreign and Indian Muslims were freely bestowed jobs and gifts. Foreign Muslims were most welcome here. They came in large numbers and were well provided for. Muhammad Tughlaq was specially kind to them, as averred by Ibn Battutah. He writes that "the countries contiguous to India like Yemen, Khurasan and Fars are filled with anecdotes about… his generosity to the foreigners in so far as he prefers them to the Indians, honours them, confers on them great favours and makes them rich presents and appoints them to high offices and awards them great benefits". He calls them aziz or dear ones and has instructed his courtiers not to address them as foreigners. 'The sultan ordered for me," writes Ibn Battutah, "a sum of six thousand tankahs, and ordered a sum of ten thousand for Ibn Qazi Misr. Similarly, he ordered sums to be given to all foreigners (a'izza) who were to stay at Delhi, but nothing was given to the metropolitans."… There are scores of instances of Muhammad Tughlaq's generosity to foreigners…. The point to note here is that under Sultan Muhammad so much wealth was awarded to so many deserving and undeserving foreign Muslims that at the close of his reign the Delhi treasury had become bankrupt. There was also the loss of popularity because "the people of India hate the foreigners (Persians, Turks, Khurasanis) because of the favour the sultan shows them."”

Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290–1351) Turkic Sultan of Delhi

Ibn Battutah, trs. Mahdi Husain, p. 105-140. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 5

Philip Pullman photo
Hugo Ball photo

“I have examined myself carefully. I could never bid chaos welcome, blow up bridges, and do away with ideas. I am not an anarchist.”

Hugo Ball (1886–1927) German author, poet and one of the leading Dada artists

Ball's dairy on Dada, in Flucht aus der Zeit / Flight out of Time, 'Introduction'; University of California Press (1996)
1916

Antisthenes photo
Richard Stallman photo
Julius Malema photo

“Malema: So these popcorn and mushrooming political parties in Zimbabwe, they will never find friendship in us. They can insult us here from air-conditioned offices of Sandton, we are unshaken. They must stop shouting at us, they must go and fight with their battle in Zimbabwe and win. Even if they've got ground and they are formed on the basis of solid ground in Zim, why are they speaking in Sandton and not Mashonaland or Matabeleland? … Let them go back and go and fight there. Even when the ANC was underground in exile, we had our internal underground forces fighting for freedom.
Fisher: You live in Sandton.
Malema: And we have never spoken from … exile. Let me tell you before you are tjatjarag [i. e. chatty]. This is a building of a revolutionary party, and you know nothing about the revolution.
Fisher: So, so they are not welcome in Sandton but you are?
Malema: So here you behave or else you jump. [Fisher and others laugh. ] Don't laugh.
Fisher: You're joking.
Malema: Chief, can you get security to remove this thing here. If you are not going to behave … call security to take you out. This is not a news room this. This is a revolutionary house. And you don't come here with that tendency. Don't come here with that white tendency, not here. … If you've got a tendency of undermining blacks even while you work, you are in a wrong place …
Fisher: That's rubbish.
Malema: … and you can go out!
Fisher: Absolutely rubbish.
Malema: Rubbish is what you have covered in that trouser. … You are a small boy, you can't do anything. … Bastard! Go out! You bloody agent! … So we think that we need to ensure that we encourage Zanu PF comrades to engage in peaceful means.”

Julius Malema (1981) South African political activist

Outburst against reporter Jonah Fisher at Luthuli House on 8 April 2010, while president of the ANC youth league and after his return from Zimbabwe, ANC's Julius Malema lashes out at 'misbehaving' BBC journalist https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/apr/08/anc-julius-malema-bbc-journalist (8 April 2010)

Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo

“Those cheerful bells, how can they bid
A welcome to the new-born Year?
I think on what the past has been;
I cannot hope—I only fear.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist

(4th January 1834) The New Year
The London Literary Gazette, 1833-1835

Martin Amis photo
Derren Brown photo
Dafydd ap Gwilym photo

“Welcome, with your lovely greenwood choir, summery month of May for which I long! Like a potent knight, an amorous boon, the green-entangled lord of the wildwood, comrade of love and of the birds, whom lovers remember, and their friend, herald of nine score trysts, fond of exalted colloquies.”

Dafydd ap Gwilym (1320–1380) Welsh poet

Hawddamor, glwysgor glasgoed,
Fis Mai haf, canys mau hoed.
Cadarn farchog serchog sâl,
Cadwynwyrdd feistr coed anial;
Cyfaill cariad ac adar,
Cof y serchogion a'u câr;
Cennad nawugain cynnadl,
Caredig urddedig ddadl.
"Mis Mai a Mis Ionawr" (To May and January), line 1; translation from Kenneth Hurlstone Jackson (ed. and trans.) A Celtic Miscellany (Harmondsworth: Penguin, [1951] 1975) p. 75.

Clement Attlee photo

“You have no right whatever to speak on behalf of the Government. Foreign affairs are in the capable hands of Ernest Bevin. His task is quite sufficiently difficult without the irresponsible statements of the kind you are making... I can assure you there is widespread resentment in the Party at your activities and a period of silence on your part would be welcome.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Harold Laski, Chairman of the Labour Party (1946), quoted in David Butler and Gareth Butler, Twentieth Century British Political Facts (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), p. 289.
Prime Minister

Anton Chekhov photo
George Will photo

“Capital is mobile. It goes where it is welcomed and stays where it is well-treated, so states compete to create tax and regulatory environments conducive to job creation. Liberals call this a "race to the bottom."”

George Will (1941) American newspaper columnist, journalist, and author

Conservatives call it a race to rationality.
Column, February 18, 2014, "Breaking the grip of the unions" http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-f-will-breaking-the-grip-of-the-unions/2014/02/18/39beb794-98d4-11e3-b88d-f36c07223d88_story.html at washingtonpost.com.
2010s

Al Gore photo
L. Ron Hubbard photo

“From the beginning…you (the ALA) have welcomed and supported me. Tonight you have gone one step further—you have adopted me.” She later explained, “It was at that moment, and ever after, that I regarded myself as a librarian.”

Henriette Avram (1919–2006) American computer programmer and system analyst. She developed the MARC formatting used in libraries

(p.860.)
At the acceptance of the Margaret Mann Citation
MARC her Words: An Interview with Henriette Avram, 1989

Khushwant Singh photo
Anthony Burgess photo

“I am Dracula…. I bid you welcome.”

Garrett Fort (1900–1945) screenwriter

Dracula, welcoming Harker to his castle
Dracula (1931)

Warren Farrell photo

“Misandry – or man hating – is the equivalent of misogyny. If you are unaware of misandry, welcome to the club.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

L. Frank Baum photo
Lee Evans photo

“It's like unison, "Welcome to speech therapy, all together!"…"NAOOOOOOOOOOOWWW!"”

Lee Evans (1964) English stand-up comedian and actor

Live at Her Majesty's Theatre (1994)

“It's bad to use words like 'genius' unless you are talking about the late Jean-Michel Basquiat, the black Chatterton of the 80s who, during a picturesque career as sexual hustler, addict and juvenile art-star, made a superficial mark on the cultural surface by folding the conventions of street graffiti into those of art brut before killing himself with an overdose at the age of twenty-seven. The first stage of Basquiat's fate, in the mid-80s, was to be effusively welcomed by an art industry so trivialized by fashion and blinded by money that it couldn't tell a scribble from a Leonardo. Its second stage was to be dropped by the same audience, when the novelty of his work wore off. The third was an attempt at apotheosis four years after his death, with a large retrospective at the Whitney Museum designed to sanitise his short, frantic life and position him as a kind of all-purpose, inflatable martyr-figure, thus restoring the dollar value of his oeuvre in a time of collapsing prices for American contemporary art. One contributor to the catalogue proclaimed that "Jean remains wrapped in the silent purple toga of immortality"; another opined that "he is as close to Goya as American painting has ever produced." A third, not to be outdone, extolled Basquiat's "punishing regime of self-abuse" as part of "the disciplines imposed by the principle of inverse ascetism to which he was so resolutely committed."”

Robert Hughes (1938–2012) Australian critic, historian, writer

These disciplines of inverse ascetism, one sees, mean shooting smack until you drop dead.
Page 195
Culture of Complaint (1993)

John F. Kennedy photo
Koenraad Elst photo

“Distortive or even totally false reporting on communally sensitive issues is a well-entrenched feature of Indian journalism. There is no self-corrective mechanism in place to remedy this endemic culture of disinformation. No reporter or columnist or editor ever gets fired or formally reprimanded or even just criticized by his peers for smearing Hindus. This way, a partisan economy with the truth has become a habit hard to relinquish. And foreign correspondents used to trusting their Indian secularist sources have likewise developed a habit of swallowing and relaying highly distorted news stories. Usually, the creation of a false impression of the Indian communal situation is achieved without outright lies, relying rather on the silent treatment for inconvenient facts and a screaming overemphasis on convenient ones. (…) So, moral of the story: feel free to write lies about the Hindus. Even if you are found out, most of the public will never hear of it, and you will not be made to bear any consequences.(…) These days, noisy secularists lie in waiting for communal riots and elatedly jump at them when and where they erupt. They exploit the anti-Hindu propaganda value of riots to the hilt, making up fictional stories as they go along to compensate for any defects in the true account. John Dayal is welcomed to Congressional committees in Washington DC as a crown witness to canards such as how Hindus are raping Catholic nuns in Jhabua, an allegation long refuted in a report by the Congress state government of Madhya Pradesh and more recently in the court verdict on the matter. Arundhati Roy goes lyrical about the torture of a Muslim politician's two daughters by Hindus during the Gujarat riots of 2002, even when the man had only one daughter, who came forward to clarify that she happened to be in the US at the time of the “facts.””

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

Harsh Mander has already been condemned by the Press Council of India for spreading false rumours about alleged Hindu atrocities in his famous column Hindustan Hamara. Teesta Setalwad has reportedly pressured eyewitnesses to give the desired incriminating testimony against Hindus in the Gujarat riots.
K. Elst: Religious Cleansing of Hindus, 2004, Agni conference in The Hague, in The Problem with Secularism (2007)
2000s, The Problem with Secularism (2007)

Wilfred Thesiger photo
Samuel Rutherford photo
Aimee Mann photo
Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“So it is in that spirit that I declare this afternoon to the people of Cuba that those who seek refuge here in America will find it. The dedication of America to our traditions as an asylum for the oppressed is going to be upheld. I have directed the Departments of State and Justice and Health, Education, and Welfare to immediately make all the necessary arrangements to permit those in Cuba who seek freedom to make an orderly entry into the United States of America. Our first concern will be with those Cubans who have been separated from their children and their parents and their husbands and their wives and that are now in this country. Our next concern is with those who are imprisoned for political reasons. And I will send to the Congress tomorrow a request for supplementary funds of $12,600,000 to carry forth the commitment that I am making today. I am asking the Department of State to seek through the Swiss government immediately the agreement of the Cuban government in a request to the President of the International Red Cross Committee. The request is for the assistance of the Committee in processing the movement of refugees from Cuba to Miami. Miami will serve as a port of entry and a temporary stopping place for refugees as they settle in other parts of this country. And to all the voluntary agencies in the United States, I appeal for their continuation and expansion of their magnificent work. Their help is needed in the reception and the settlement of those who choose to leave Cuba. The Federal Government will work closely with these agencies in their tasks of charity and brotherhood. I want all the people of this great land of ours to know of the really enormous contribution which the compassionate citizens of Florida have made to humanity and to decency. And all States in this Union can join with Florida now in extending the hand of helpfulness and humanity to our Cuban brothers. The lesson of our times is sharp and clear in this movement of people from one land to another. Once again, it stamps the mark of failure on a regime when many of its citizens voluntarily choose to leave the land of their birth for a more hopeful home in America. The future holds little hope for any government where the present holds no hope for the people. And so we Americans will welcome these Cuban people. For the tides of history run strong, and in another day they can return to their homeland to find it cleansed of terror and free from fear. Over my shoulders here you can see Ellis Island, whose vacant corridors echo today the joyous sound of long ago voices. And today we can all believe that the lamp of this grand old lady is brighter today; and the golden door that she guards gleams more brilliantly in the light of an increased liberty for the people from all the countries of the globe. Thank you very much.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Remarks at the signing of the Immigration Bill (1965)

Richard Fuller (minister) photo
Cesare Pavese photo
Bill Engvall photo

“Welcome to my garage! This is where I go to get away from the honey-do list.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

15° Off Cool (2007)

Ernst Bloch photo
Nisargadatta Maharaj photo
William Cowper photo
John Herschel photo

“What God sends is welcome.”

John Herschel (1792–1871) English mathematician, astronomer, chemist and photographer

Diary entry (November 1855), as quoted in The Shadow of the Telescope: A Biography of John Herschel by Günther Buttmann

Pope Benedict XVI photo
Gautama Buddha photo

“Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

The Jatka (From the Attainment of the Buddhaship. Also is in the Nirvana Sutta.)
Unclassified

L. Frank Baum photo
Max Beerbohm photo

“Lift latch, step in, be welcome, Sir,
Albeit to see you I’m unglad.”

Max Beerbohm (1872–1956) English writer

A Luncheon

George Wallace photo
Walther von der Vogelweide photo

“"Welcome, I'm master of the house" – a greeting I fall silent at.
"Welcome, my guest" – I have to answer, or give a bow.
Master, House – two names that have no shame attached;
but Guest and Lodging – the sense of shame you feel.”

Walther von der Vogelweide (1170–1230) Middle High German lyric poet

"Sît willekomen herre wirt" dem gruoze muoz ich swîgen,
"sît willekomen herre gast", sô muoz ich sprechen oder nîgen.
wirt unde heim sint zwêne unschamelîche namen,
gast unde herberge muoz man sich dicke schamen.
"'Sît willekomen herre wirt' dem gruoze muoz ich swîgen", line 1; translation by Tim Chilcott. http://colecizj.easyvserver.com/pgvb3908.htm

Tony Benn photo
Voltairine de Cleyre photo
Emily Brontë photo
Walker Percy photo