“La historia no se hace con grandes sueños sino con las insignificantes necesidades de todas las gentes honradas, moderadamente maliciosas y que se buscan a sí mismas.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.
“It's astonishing what a number of churches and idiots there are in the world.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.
“Nobody can hate man more than man.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.
“But old Rossum meant it literally.
He wanted to become a sort of scientific substitute for God. He was a fearful materialist, and that's why he did it all. His sole purpose was nothing more nor less than to prove that God was no longer necessary.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.
“Dr Gall: Hoši, je to zločin staré Evropy, že naučila Roboty válčit! Nemohli už dát, u čerta, pokoj s tou svou politikou? To byl zločin, udělat z živé práce vojáky!
Alquist: Zločin byl vyrábět Roboty!
Domin: Cože?
Alquist: Zločin byl vyrábět Roboty!
Domin: Ne. Alquiste, ani dnes toho nelituju.
Alquist: Ani dnes?
Domin: Ani dnes, v poslední den civilizace. Byla to veliká věc.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.
“but within the next ten years Rossum’s Universal Robots will produce so much wheat, so much cloth, so much everything that things will no longer have any value. Everyone will be able to take as much as he needs. There’ll be no more poverty. Yes, people will be out of work, but by then there’ll be no work left to be done. Everything will be done by living machines. People will do only what they enjoy. They will live only to perfect themselves.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.
“nothing is stranger to man than his own image”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.
“Helena: Will they be happier when they can feel pain?
Dr. Gall: On the contrary. But they will be technically more perfect.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from R.U.R.
“To experience commitment as the loss of options, a type of death, the death of childhood's limitless possibility, of the flattery of choice without duress-this will happen, mark me. Childhood's end.”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from The Pale King
“Someone must have knocked on the door. She rushes to it, looks through the peephole, and steps back, muttering to herself. I can’t quite read her lips. Emily opens the door, and a man brushes past her. He’s wearing a button-down shirt, a tie, and kicks that cost more than my monthly rent. He puts down his suitcase, shakes hands with Mr. Madison, and turns to Emily. He starts toward her, his arms outstretched. I step forward to get between them, but Mrs. Madison grabs my arm. “Don’t,” she warns. “This will work itself out.” Emily lets him pull her into an embrace, but she doesn’t hug him back. She cringes instead. This warms my heart. She looks over at me, and I see something I don’t quite understand in her gaze. Is it pity? For me? Is she afraid I can’t compete with this man? Who the hell is he, anyway? I draw a circle around my lips, asking her who he is without anyone seeing me. She crooks her index finger into the sign for the letter x. That’s her ex? Seriously? Emily’s past has just walked in the door. And if the look on his face is any indication, he no longer wants to be in the past. He wants more. I look at her father, who’s smirking at me with his arms folded in front of his chest. He doesn’t want the asshat to be in the past either. Fine. I’ll knock his ass into the middle of next week. That’s the only way he’ll ever be a part of her future. I take a step forward flexing my fingers as I go. He’s as big as I am, but I’d be willing to bet his jaw is made of candy, just like his ass.”
― quote from Smart, Sexy and Secretive
“swear, being in a hospital’s like being in a den of vampires. They never get enough of your blood.”
― Nora Roberts, quote from High Noon
“There's people in hell who want ice water.”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm
“[…] Everyone tries to make his life a work of art. We want love to last and we know that it does not last; even if, by some miracle, it were to last a whole lifetime, it would still be incomplete. Perhaps, in this insatiable need for perpetuation, we should better understand human suffering, if we knew that it was eternal. It appears that great minds are, sometimes, less horrified by suffering than by the fact that it does not endure. In default of inexhaustible happiness, eternal suffering would at least give us a destiny. But we do not even have that consolation, and our worst agonies come to an end one day. One morning, after many dark nights of despair, an irrepressible longing to live will announce to us the fact that all is finished and that suffering has no more meaning than happiness.”
― Albert Camus, quote from The Rebel: An Essay on Man in Revolt
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.
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