Migration Quotes

• History in its broadest aspect is a record of man's migrations from one environment to another.

  Ellsworth Huntington

  Science, Men, History

  Ellsworth Huntington (2016). “A Chronicle of Aboriginal America: Juvenile History - - American”, p.2, VM eBooks

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• We must force the government to stop the bird migration. We must shoot all birds, field all our men and troops... and force migratory birds to stay where they are.

  Vladimir Zhirinovsky

  Men, Bird, Troops

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• From the early days of European migration to America, in the 17th Century, the prototype of buildings was based on English precedent, even if mostly translated into the locally available material in abundance: timber.

  Harry Seidler

  America, Abundance, Building

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• Electronic aids, particularly domestic computers, will help the inner migration, the opting out of reality. Reality is no longer going to be the stuff out there, but the stuff inside your head. It's going to be commercial and nasty at the same time.

  J. G. Ballard

  Reality, Stuff, Helping

  Heavy Metal Interview, April 1982.

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• Migration is an expression of the human aspiration for dignity, safety and a better future. It is part of the social fabric, part of our very make-up as a human family

  Ban Ki-moon

  Expression, Safety, Fabric

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• Although mountains may guide migrations, the plains are the regions where people dwell in greatest numbers.

  Ellsworth Huntington

  Numbers, People, House

  Ellsworth Huntington (2016). “A Chronicle of Aboriginal America: Juvenile History - - American”, p.20, VM eBooks

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• Remember, remember always, that all of us, and you and I especially, are descended from immigrants and revolutionists.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Xenophobia, Patriotic, Usa

  Remarks before Daughters of the American Revolution Convention, Washington, D.C., 21 Apr. 1938. Often paraphrased as Roosevelt's addressing the DAR as "my fellow immigrants."

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• Furthermore, the study of the present surroundings is insufficient: the history of the people, the influence of the regions through which it has passed on its migrations, and the people with whom it came into contact, must be considered

  Franz Boas

  People, Study, Influence

  Franz Boas (1989). “A Franz Boas Reader: The Shaping of American Anthropology, 1883-1911”, p.64, University of Chicago Press

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• Migration - whether emigration or return - at the micro level is an individual choice, and government both at the Centre and the states have role only to facilitate the decision of the individuals.

  Vayalar Ravi

  Government, Individual Choice, Decision

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• There are certain things that we take for granted that simply would not have existed without the great migration. Motown, for example, would not have existed - it simply would not, because Berry Gordy, the founder of it, his parents had migrated from Georgia to Detroit where he founded Motown, and where did he get his talent?

  Isabel Wilkerson

  Parent, Example, Berries

  "Journalist Isabel Wilkerson". "Tavis Smiley", www.pbs.org. October 6, 2010.

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• Migration gives a blank cheque to put anything you don't feel like addressing in the memory hold. No neighbours can go against the monster narrative of your family.

  Junot Diaz

  Memories, Giving, Monsters

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• Facebook's successor will no doubt provide an easy "migration utility" through which you can bring all your so-called friends with you, if you even want to.

  Douglas Rushkoff

  Doubt, Want, Easy

  "Facebook hype will fade" by Douglas Rushkoff, www.cnn.com. January 7, 2011.

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• There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-thinking individuals, no matter how virtuous their cause.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Thinking, Lemmings, Matter

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Parliament of Whores: A Lone Humorist Attempts to Explain the Entire U.S. Government”, p.194, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The whole story of migration and what that has done in interconnecting the planet is obviously something I've written about a lot.

  Salman Rushdie

  Stories, Done, Planets

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• So if Arizona sees the federal government isn't assuming its responsibilities, it creates local laws. But migration and keeping security on the borders is not a local or state issue, it's a federal issue.

  Vicente Fox

  Responsibility, Government, Law

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• I think that people should come to Australia through the front door, not through the back door. If people want a migration outcome, they should go through the migration channels.

  Tony Abbott

  Thinking, Doors, Australia

  "Tony Abbott blames carbon tax for 'uncertainty'". "7.30' with Leigh Sales, www.abc.net.au. August 22, 2012.

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• What, after all, is the narrative of the American Dream? It was a discourse formulated between the 1880s and the 1920s in the United States during the great waves of migration and expansion and reforms of the Progressive Era.

  Naomi Wolf

  Dream, Expansion, United States

  "How the Mitt Romney video killed the American Dream" by Naomi Wolf, www.theguardian.com. September 21, 2012.

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• If we do not change our negative habits toward climate change, we can count on worldwide disruptions in food production, resulting in mass migration, refugee crises and increased conflict over scarce natural resources like water and farm land. This is a recipe for major security problems.

  Michael Franti

  Refugee Crisis, Land, Water

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• Well, I'm a daughter of the great migration as, really, the majority of African Americans that you meet in the north and west are products of the great migration. It's that massive. Many of us owe our very existence to the fact that people migrated.

  Isabel Wilkerson

  Daughter, Mother, People

  "Journalist Isabel Wilkerson". "Tavis Smiley show" with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. December 23, 2010.

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• 

  I had always hoped that this land might become a safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.

  George Washington

  Land, America, Atheism

  George Washington, Stephen Lucas (1999). “The Quotable George Washington: The Wisdom of an American Patriot”, p.5, Rowman & Littlefield

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• What I love about the stories of the Great Migration is that this is not ancient history; this is living history. Most people of color can find someone in their own family who had experienced a migration of some kind, knowing the sense of dislocation, longing and fortitude.

  Isabel Wilkerson

  Color, Knowing, People

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• We have a Conservative leader that believes in green taxes, that won't bring back grammar schools, that believes in continuing with total open-door migration from eastern Europe and refuses to give us a referendum on the EU.

  Nigel Farage

  Believe, School, Doors

  "Conservative right calls for return to core values and end to 'barmy' policies" by Nicholas Watt, www.theguardian.com. May 4, 2012.

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• I mean my mother migrated from Georgia -Rome, Georgia, to Washington, D.C., where she then met my father, who was a Tuskegee Airman who was from Southern Virginia. They migrated to Washington and I wouldn't even exist if it were not for that migration. And I brought her back to Georgia, both my parents, actually.

  Isabel Wilkerson

  Mother, Father, Mean

  "Great Migration: The African-American Exodus North". "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, www.npr.org. September 13, 2010.

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• Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

  Emma Lazarus

  Tired, Civilization, Urbanization

  "The New Colossus" l. 10 (1883).

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• Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English or leave the country.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Country, Patriotic, Years

  Theodore Roosevelt (1921). “Roosevelt in the Kansas City Star: War-time Editorials”

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