50 Hospitality Quotes To Make You Feel At Home

By Clifton Sankofa | Published July 12, 2023

Feel at home with our hospitality quotes.

Hospitality goes back thousands of years in human history

Why have people always felt compelled to host one another?

Check out our hospitality quotes below to learn more.

What is hospitality?

Hospitality means to make people feel welcome and at home.

Check out these exciting hospitality facts below:

How hospitality manifests differs depending on the culture.
Most would agree that hospitality is the generous and friendly reception of guests.
In business terms, hospitality is the service of providing food, beverages, and accommodations for customers.

What is the history of hospitality?

If you are looking to learn more about the history of hospitality, you usually end up going down two different roads:

The hospitality practices among different cultures and the commercial hospitality industry.

Both histories are compelling.

Cultural hospitality practices

There is a rich history of hospitality on every continent.

We have written stories, oral traditions, and even artifacts that shed light on the deep history of hospitality.

On all continents, people have different ways of practicing hosting or entertaining others.

People often offer food, rest, lodging, water, and entertainment to whoever they host.

Water is the most commonly consumed beverage.

Almost all cultures provide water to guests and visitors as hospitality.

In many cultures preparing warm drinks like tea or coffee is hospitable; other places like to offer alcoholic beverages as a way of making people feel at home.

Food and snacks are also typical.

Some cultures prefer large meals to satisfy guests, while others offer light fare as refreshments.

The hospitality industry

Hospitality goes back to dates as far as 15,000 B.C.

The Lascaux caves in France offer fascinating glimpses into our history.

We have documented instances of ancient tribal human beings hosting one another.

Writings of ancient hotels and lodges in Greece, China, Rome, and Egypt still exist.

Many of these cultures offered comfortable and thorough services to guests, friends, and strangers.

Amenities such as buffets, cocktails, warm baths, massages, and other services are thousands of years old.

To learn more, check out our hospitality quotes below.

Short hospitality quotes about creating comfort for others

Check out these short and sweet hospitality quotes.

1. “Hospitality is almost impossible to teach.” — Danny Meyer

2. “There is no hospitality like understanding.” — Vanna Bonta

3. “Our full humanity is contingent on our hospitality.” — Alice Waters

4. “True hospitality is a delicate balance of warmth and form.” — Sheila Ostrander

5. “Hospitality is the key to new ideas, new friends, new possibilities.” — Joan Chittister

Related: Short Inspirational Quotes

6. “Hospitality is the smell of my food; service is the taste of my food.” — Hamed Suleiman

7. “Hospitality consists in a little fire, a little food, and an immense quiet” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

8. “True hospitality consists of giving the best of yourself to your guests.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

9. “Hospitality is making your guests feel at home, even if you wish they were.” — Justine Vogt

10. “You’re extending hospitality, and hospitality is a big part of how politics works.” — Kurt Meyer

The top hospitality quotes about the heart and soul hosting

These quotes celebrate the empathy and love that go into authentic hospitality.

11. “Hospitality is simply love on the loose.” — Joan Chittister

12. “Culture is simply the hospitality of the intellect.” — Tom Kettle

13. “Hospitality should have no other nature than love.” — Henrietta Mears

14. “True hospitality is a delicate balance of warmth and form.” — Sheila Ostrander

15. “True hospitality consists of giving the best of yourself to your guests.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

16. “Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.” — Henri Nouwen

17. “True hospitality is marked by an open response to the dignity of each and every person.” — Kathleen Norris

18. “A soul of hospitality and a heart of humanity is a house of love, peace, freedom, liberty, and justice.” — Auliq Ice

19. “Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.” — Washington Irving

20. “Hospitality still survives among foreigners, although it is buried under false pride among the poorest Americans.” — Jane Addams

The best hospitality quotes about making strangers feel welcome

A good host always makes you feel welcome.

21. “Hospitality is the way we come out of ourselves.” — Joan Chittister

22. “Hospitality is the way we turn a prejudiced world around, one heart at a time.” — Joan Chittister

23. “In tennis and NBA basketball, everybody had a hospitality suite, and so you could go there and load up if you wanted to.” — Pat Summerall

24. “Hospitality means we take people into the space that is our lives and our minds and our hearts and our work and our efforts.” — Joan Chittister

25. “In hospitality, there’s always more to learn, and you’re dealing with so many different types of people from all over the world every single day.” — Dwight Zahringer

26. “There is an emanation from the heart in genuine hospitality which cannot be described, but is immediately felt and puts the stranger at once at his ease.” — Washington Irving

27. “True Hospitality is welcoming the stranger on her own terms. This kind of hospitality can only be offered by those who’ve found the center of their lives in their own hearts.” — Henri Nouwen

28. “The word hospitality in the New Testament comes from two Greek words. The first word means love, and the second word means strangers. It’s a word that means love of strangers.” — Nancy Leigh DeMoss

29. “The heart of hospitality, for me, is the ability to focus completely and totally on one person, even if only for a matter of seconds, yet long enough that you’ve got a clear connection, a channel between the two of you.” — Micah Solomon

30. “It is easier to have faith that God will support each House of Hospitality and Farming Commune and supply our needs in the way of food and money to pay bills, than it is to keep a strong, hearty, living faith in each individual around us to see Christ in him.” — Dorothy Day

Hospitality quotes about the essence of hosting

Check out these awesome hospitality quotes about hosting.

31. “Hospitality should have no other nature than love.” — Henrietta Mears

32. “When hospitality becomes an art, it loses its very soul.” — Max Beerbohm

33. “Dreams are guests who ensoul our lives if we have hospitality for them.” — Jeannine Parvati Baker

34. “It is an excellent circumstance that hospitality grows best where it is most needed.” — Hugh Miller

35. “Hospitality sometimes degenerates into profuseness and ends in madness and folly.” — Francis Atterbury

36. “The hospitality of the wigwam is only limited by the institution of war.” — Charles Alexander Eastman

37. “Hospitality is the virtue which induces us to feed and lodge certain persons who are not in need of food and lodging.” — Ambrose Bierce

38 “Hospitality invites to prayer before it checks credentials, welcomes to the table before administering the entrance exam.” — Patrick Henry

39. “Let not the emphasis of hospitality lie in bed and board, but let truth and love and honor and courtesy flow in all thy deeds.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

40. “Hospitality means primarily the creation of free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy.” — Henri Nouwen

Hospitality quotes and sayings about life

Here are a few more various hospitality quotes for your enjoyment.

41. When hospitality becomes an art, it loses its very soul.” — Max Beerbohm

42. “Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place.” — Henri Nouwen

44. “A great cook is made from having a great sense of hospitality and trying to make people happy.”— Paul Rankin

43. “Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.” — Washington Irving

45. “Hospitality does not bring men and women over to our side, but offers freedom not disturbed by dividing lines.” — Henri Nouwen

46. “What does cookery mean? It means the economy of your great-grandmother and the science of modern chemistry, and French art, and Arabian hospitality.” — John Ruskin

47. “Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions for and to express it all.” — Danny Meyer

48. “My dreams are huge, man. I dream all day, every day. Do I want to get into restaurants one day? Yeah! Do I want to get into hospitality and have my own hotels? Yeah, I do!” — Michael B. Jordan

49. “We strongly believe that the Philippines has huge potential in the tourism industry, given our beautiful islands, moderate weather conditions, good cuisine, and the flair of Filipinos for hospitality and entertainment.” — Henry Sy

50. “Having been in the restaurant business, our job in the restaurant business is to be responsible for our customers’ happiness. It’s the nature of the hospitality business. You need to take care of people. You take care of customers above all others. Customers are your lifeblood.” — Andrew Zimmern