“The world is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings
“Republics never survive, for their people do not like freedom but prefer to be led and guided and flattered and seduced into slavery by a benevolent, or not so, benevolent despot. They want to worship Caesar. So, American republicanism will inevitably die and become a democracy, and then decline, as Aristotle said into a despotism.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings
“Mankind adores its betrayers, and murders its saviors.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings
“When you are young you believe the world is all yours, glorious and exhilarating and fascinating and full of promise and trumpets and drums and marches and new worlds,” said Charles. “We don’t ask ourselves what we are living for then. We know. But we forget, later, or it all seems a foolish dream.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings
“money came from human misery and death and despair, as always it does.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings
“Forests, hills, mountains, rivers, and green streams had no protection in the face of rapacity.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings
“Profits. Joe, if you want to use just one word”—and Mr. Healey wagged a huge finger at Joseph—“to describe wars and the making of wars, it’s profits. Nothing else. Profits.”
― Taylor Caldwell, quote from Captains and the Kings
“But is it not already an insult to call chess anything so narrow as a game? Is it not also a science, an art, hovering between these categories like Muhammad's coffin between heaven and earth, a unique yoking of opposites, ancient and yet eternally new, mechanically constituted and yet an activity of the imagination alone, limited to a fixed geometric area but unlimited in its permutations, constantly evolving and yet sterile, a cogitation producing nothing, a mathematics calculating nothing, an art without an artwork, an architecture without substance and yet demonstrably more durable in its essence and actual form than all books and works, the only game that belongs to all peoples and all eras, while no one knows what god put it on earth to deaden boredom, sharpen the mind, and fortify the spirit?”
― Stefan Zweig, quote from Chess Story
“Welcome, welcome to Caraval! The grandest show on land or by sea. Inside you’ll experience more wonders than most people see in a lifetime. You can sip magic from a cup and buy dreams in a bottle. But before you fully enter into our world, you must remember it’s all a game.”
― Stephanie Garber, quote from Caraval
“In such a fashion human beings call for explanations of the things that happen to them and in such a way scenes and characters are set for exploration, like toys set out by kneeling children intent on pursuing their grim but necessary games.”
― Paul Scott, quote from The Jewel in the Crown
“Therefore, they is only one thing to do …” Here I stopped speaking altogether for a while, allowing these last words to enter their consciousness. Minutes passed and they said nothing, then Henry’s voice broke the silence, his deaf man’s bleat hoarse and cracked, a shock in the stillness: “Us gotta kill all dem white sonsabitches. Ain’t dat what de Lawd done told you? Ain’t dat right, Nat?” It was as if by those words we were committed. Us gotta kill … I talked on, detailing my plans.”
― William Styron, quote from The Confessions of Nat Turner
“There is, in fact, an incredible freedom in having nothing left to lose.”
― Marya Hornbacher, quote from Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.