Quotes from Seeing

“As my cat would say, all hours are good for sleeping.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“Oh, I'm not just going too far, I've arrived.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“الامل كالملح لا يغذي لكنه يعطى للخبز طعماً”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“كم مرة تأتي المخاوف لتضيف المرارة لحياتنا وفي النهاية نكتشف أن لا أساس لها ولا سبب لوجودها”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“But truths need to be repeated many times so that they don't, poor things, lapse into oblivion.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“نولد،وفي لحظة ميلادنا كما لو كنا نوقع ميثاقا للحياة للأبد،لكن في يوم ما نسأل أنفسنا من وقع هذا الميثاق بالنيابة عنا”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“Nascemos, e nesse momento é como se tivéssemos firmado um pacto para toda a vida, mas o dia pode chegar em que nos perguntemos Quem assinou isto por mim.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“One can show no greater respect than to weep for a stranger.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“It is an unwavering rule for those in power that, when it comes to heads, it is best to cut them off before they start thinking, afterwards, it might be too late.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“اننا لهب صغير ومرتجف مهدد في كل لحظة بالخمود ونحن نعرف الخوف وقبل أي شئ يسكننا الخوف”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“الامل كالملح لكنه يعطى للخبز طعماً”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“Casting a ballot is your irrevocable right, and no one will ever deny you that right, but just as you tell children not to play with matches, so we warn whole peoples of the dangers of playing with dynamite.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“In a matter of a moment the amount of sand in the upper part of the hour-glass had dwindled dramatically, the tiny grains were rushing through the opening, each grain more eager to leave then the last, time is just like people, sometimes it’s all it can do to drag itself along, but at others, it runs like a deer and leaps like a young goat, which, when you think about it, is not saying much, since the cheetah is the fastest of all the animals, and yet it has never occurred to anyone to say of another person He runs and jumps like a cheetah, perhaps because that first comparison comes from the magical late middle ages, when gentlemen went deer-hunting and no one had ever seen a cheetah running or even heard of its existence. Languages are conservative, they always carry their archives with them and hate having to be updated.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“I have yet to hear a single idea that was worth considering for longer than it took us to listen to it.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“Put less respectfully, these men and women, standing before the mirror of their life, spit every day in the face of what they were with the sputum of what they are.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“human beings are known universally as the only animals capable of lying, and while it is true that they sometimes lie out of fear and sometimes out of self-interest, they also occasionally lie because they realize, just in time, that this is the only means available to them of defending the truth.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“إن الفرق الأكيد الذي يمكن أن نعقده بين الناس ليس تقسيمهم إلى أذكياء أو أغبياءن وإنما إلى أذكياء وأكثر ذكاءًا فمع الأغبياء نفعل ما نريد، أما الأذكياء فالحل أن نضعهم في خدمتنا، أما الأكثر ذكاءًا، خاصة عندما يكونوا جانبنا، فهم أشد خطورة بشكل جوهرين ولا يمكن أن يتلافوا ذلك، والطريف في الأمر أنهم يقولون لنا باستمرار بتصرفاتهم إن علينا أن نأخذ منهم حذرنا، لكننا عادة لا ننتبه لتحذيراتهم وبعدها علينا أن نتحمل العواقب”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“We are born, and at that moment, it is as if we had signed a pact for the rest of our life, but a day may come when we will ask ourselves Who signed this on my behalf,”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“ليس هناك حب أكبر من البكاء على شخص لم تعرفه”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“Perfect moments, especially when they verge on the sublime have the grave disadvantage of being very short lived, which in fact, being obvious, we would not need to mention were it not that they have a still greater disadvantage, which is that we do not know what to do once they are over.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“((أنا أؤكد أن الصوت الابيض هو احد مظاهر العمي المدمر مثل الاخري))
((أو أحد مظاهر البصيرة))”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“(...) Nada de discursos, aqui cada um com seu desgosto e todos com a mesma pena.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“عندما سمعها تنطق اسمها شعر في قلبه بشئ, ربما كان ظل سعادة قديمة, لا شئ سوي الظل, لكن بالرغم من كونه ظلا, فكر أنه من أجل ذلك فقط كان وجوده هنا له قيمة.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“The prime minister's final flourish, Honour your country, for the eyes of the country are upon you, complete with drumrolls and bungle blasts, unearthed from the attics of the mustiest of nationalistic rhetoric, was ruined by a Good night that rang entirely false, but then that is the great thing about ordinary words, they are incapable of deceit.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“It is an unvarying rule for those in power that, when it comes to heads, it is best to cut them off before they start to think, afterward, it might be too late.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“his career had just taken a great leap forward, he was going to pee in his chief's toilet.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“الحقوق ليست أشياء مبهمة,فالحقوق اما ان تستحق أو لا تستحق .”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“من يحب الأهداف عليه أيضا أن يحب الوسائل”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“La esperanza es como la sal, no alimenta pero da sabor al pan.”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

“none of them has a capital P branded on his forehead,”
― José Saramago, quote from Seeing

About the author

Popular quotes

“إنَّ الذاكرة , كما تعلم , هي الفخُّ الأكبر .”
― Paul Auster, quote from In the Country of Last Things

“There is one thing I like about the Poles—their language. Polish, when it is spoken by intelligent people, puts me in ecstasy. The sound of the language evokes strange images in which there is always a greensward of fine spiked grass in which hornets and snakes play a great part. I remember days long back when Stanley would invite me to visit his relatives; he used to make me carry a roll of music because he wanted to show me off to these rich relatives. I remember this atmosphere well because in the presence of these smooth−tongued, overly polite, pretentious and thoroughly false Poles I always felt miserably uncomfortable. But when they spoke to one another, sometimes in French, sometimes in Polish, I sat back and watched them fascinatedly. They made strange Polish grimaces, altogether unlike our relatives who were stupid barbarians at bottom. The Poles were like standing snakes fitted up with collars of hornets. I never knew what they were talking about but it always seemed to me as if they were politely assassinating some one. They were all fitted up with sabres and broad−swords which they held in their teeth or brandished fiercely in a thundering charge. They never swerved from the path but rode rough−shod over women and children, spiking them with long pikes beribboned with blood−red pennants. All this, of course, in the drawing−room over a glass of strong tea, the men in butter−colored gloves, the women dangling their silly lorgnettes. The women were always ravishingly beautiful, the blonde houri type garnered centuries ago during the Crusades. They hissed their long polychromatic words through tiny, sensual mouths whose lips were soft as geraniums. These furious sorties with adders and rose petals made an intoxicating sort of music, a steel−stringed zithery slipper−gibber which could also register anomalous sounds like sobs and falling jets of water.”
― Henry Miller, quote from Sexus

“Grey sat in his bedchamber, unshaven and attired in his nightshirt, banyan, and slippers, drinking tea and debating with himself whether the authoritative benefits conferred by wearing his uniform outweighed the possible consequences - both sartorial and social - of wearing it into the slumps of London to inspect a three-day-old corpse.”
― Diana Gabaldon, quote from Lord John and the Private Matter

“Once a friend, always a friend. Why should borders stop that?”
― Erin Hunter, quote from Fading Echoes

“Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.”
― Alan Bennett, quote from The Uncommon Reader

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.