Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Critique of insularity; knowing only one place limits understanding of the world. Travel broadens perspective.
In plain terms
People who never leave home don't understand other places.
What can you take from it?
Travel to understand the world better.

Where it applies

  • policy making
  • cross cultural work
  • education

Putting it to work

  • visit unfamiliar regions
  • study abroad
  • read foreign sources

Questions to consider

  • What have you missed by staying put?
  • How do you expand your view?

Another view

Deep local knowledge can be more valuable than broad shallow awareness.

More from Rudyard Kipling

  1. Asia is not going to be civilised after the methods of the West. There is too much Asia and she is too old.

    Permalink to quote #84
  2. 'Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high 'The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die - 'The good that ye did for the s…

    Permalink to quote #86
  3. San Francisco is a mad city - inhabited for the most part by perfectly insane people, whose women are of a remarkable beauty.

    Permalink to quote #83

Related quotes

  1. They expressed, as was usual, unbounded astonishment at the globe being round, and could scarcely credit that a hole would, if deep enough, come out on the oth…

    Charles DarwinCharles Darwin quote #18
  2. I had been coming to America very frequently for many, many years, so I had plenty of exposure - and maybe the best kind of exposure, because I think first imp…

    Lee ChildLee Child quote #22
  3. A man should know something of his own country too, before he goes abroad.

    Laurence SterneLaurence Sterne quote #27