Quotes from The Double

“Chaos is merely order waiting to be deciphered.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Reading is probably another way of being in a place.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“لستُ مريضًا، كل ما في الأمر أن كل شيء يتعبني ويضجرني، هذه الرتابة الملعونة، التكرار، التشابه.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“...sometimes we ask ourselves why happiness took so long to arrive, why it didn't come sooner, but appears suddenly, as now, when we've given up hope of it ever arriving, it's likely then that we won't know what to do, and rather than it being a question of choosing between laughter and tears, we will be filled by a secret anxiety to which we might not know how to respond at all.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“We have an odd relationship with words. We learn a few when we are small, throughout our lives we collect others through education, conversation, our contact with books, and yet, in comparison, there are only a tiny number about whose meaning, sense, and denotation we would have absolutely no doubts, if one day, we were to ask ourselves seriously what they meant. Thus we affirm and deny, thus we convince and are convinced, thus we argue, deduce, and conclude, wandering fearlessly over the surface of concepts about which we only have the vaguest of ideas, and, despite the false air of confidence that we generally affect as we feel our way along the road in verbal darkness, we manage, more or less, to understand each other and even, sometimes, to find each other.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Costuma-se dizer, dêmos tempo ao tempo, mas aquilo que sempre nos esquecemos de perguntar é se haverá tempo para dar.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“O melhor caminho para uma desculpabilização universal é chegar à conclusão de que, porque toda a gente tem culpas, ninguém é culpado.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Every second that passes is like a door that opens to allow in what has not yet happened, what we call the future, but, to challenge the contradictory nature of what we have just said, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the future is just an immense void, that the future is just the time on which the eternal present feeds.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“...a veces nos preguntamos por qué la felicidad tarda tanto en llegar, por qué no vino antes, pero si nos aparece de repente, como en este caso, cuando ya no la esperábamos, entonces lo más probable es que no sepamos qué hacer con ella, y la cuestión no es tanto elegir entre reír o llorar, es la secreta angustia de pensar que tal vez no consigamos estar a su altura”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Such is our need to shower blame on some distant entity when it is we who lack the courage to face up to what is there before us.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“..there are times when it is best to be content with what one has, so as not to lose everything.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“We all know that each day that dawns is the first for some and will be the last for others, and that for most people it will be just another day.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Ao contrário do que julga o senso comum, as coisas da vontade nunca são simples, o que é simples é a indecisão, a incerteza, a irresolução.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Contrary to what most people think, making a decision is one of the easiest decisions in the world, as is more than proved by the fact that we make decision upon decision throughout the day, there, however, we run straight into the heart of the matter, for these decisions always come to us afterward with their particular little problems, or, to make ourselves quite clear, with their rough edges needing to be smoothed, the first of these problems being our capacity for sticking to a decision and the second our willingness to follow it through.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“We all know, however, that the enormous weight of tradition, habit, and custom that occupies the greater part of our brain bears down pitilessly on the more brilliant and innovative ideas of which the remaining part is capable, and although it is true that, in some cases, this weight can balance the excesses and extravagances of the imagination that would lead us God knows where were they given free rein, it is equally true that it often has a way of subtly submitting what we believed to be our free will to unconscious tropisms, like a plant that does not know why it will always have to lean toward the side from which the light comes.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“فهمت لماذا تضجر! لأنه لا شيء يجد قبولاً في نظرك ”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“ إنَّ العيشَ وحيداً بالنسبة إلى الأمزجة الكئيبة، الهشّة عموماً، وقليلة الليونة، عقابٌ شديد القسوة، لكن ذلك، ولنعترف به، على إجهاده، لا يولّد المآسي المؤثرة إلا نادراً، مآسٍ من النوع الذي تقشعرُّ له الأبدان أو ترتعد له الفرائص. ما يحدث في أغلب الأحيان، إلى درجة لم تعد تدهش كائناً من كان، هو أن الناس يقبلون بصبر أن يسبروا بعناية أقلّ زوايا عزلتهم، كما تشهد على ذلك في ماض قريب أمثلة عامة، وإن كانت كتيمة، بل والتي عَرَفت في حالتين نهاية سعيدة. ”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Tanto é o que precisamos de lançar culpas a algo distante quando o que nos faltou foi a coragem de encarar o que estava na nossa frente.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“It was said that one of them, either the actor or the history teacher, was superfluous in this world, but you weren't, you weren't superfluous, there is no duplicate of you to come and replace you at your mother's side, you were unique, just as every ordinary person is unique, truly unique.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“The devil doesn't make plans, anyway, if men were good, he wouldn't even exist.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Ao contrário do que em geral se pensa, tomar uma decisão é uma das decisões mais fáceis deste mundo, como cabalmente se demonstra pelo facto de não fazermos masi nada que multiplicá-las ao longo de todo o santíssimo dia, porém, e aí esbarramos com o busílis da questão, elas sempre nos vêm a posteriori com os seus problemazinhos particulares, ou, para que fiquemos a entender-nos, com os seus rabos por esfolar, sendo o primeiro deles o nosso grau de capacidade para mantê-las e o segundo o nosso grau de vontade para realizá-las.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Estar de acordo nem sempre significa compartilhar uma razão, o mais costume é reunirem-se pessoas à sombra de uma opinião como se ela fosse um guarda chuva”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Cuanto más te disfraces más te parecerás a ti mismo.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“But appearances, while not always as deceptive as people say.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Contrary to popular belief, the helpful words that open the way to great, dramatic dialogues are, in general, modest, ordinary, banal, no one would think that Would you like a cup of coffee could serve as an introduction to a bitter debate about feelings that have died or to the sweetness of a reconciliation that neither person knows how to bring about.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Por no tener con quién hablar acabarán un día sin tener nada que decir.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“ إن الأشياء تتحقق في الواقع بقدر أقلّ من الإطراء المبالغ فيه ”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Infelizmente, el sentido común no siempre aparece cuando es necesario, siendo muchas las veces en que de su ausencia momentánea han resultado los mayores dramas y las catástrofes más aterradoras.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

“Finding these events set down in the history book did not change her mind in the least, all the textbook did was collect together the free-flowing fantasies of the person who had written it, and there was clearly little difference between those fantasies and the ones you could find in a novel.”
― José Saramago, quote from The Double

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“Electrons, when they were first discovered, behaved exactly like particles or bullets, very simply. Further research showed, from electron diffraction experiments for example, that they behaved like waves. As time went on there was a growing confusion about how these things really behaved ---- waves or particles, particles or waves? Everything looked like both.

This growing confusion was resolved in 1925 or 1926 with the advent of the correct equations for quantum mechanics. Now we know how the electrons and light behave. But what can I call it? If I say they behave like particles I give the wrong impression; also if I say they behave like waves. They behave in their own inimitable way, which technically could be called a quantum mechanical way. They behave in a way that is like nothing that you have seen before. Your experience with things that you have seen before is incomplete. The behavior of things on a very tiny scale is simply different. An atom does not behave like a weight hanging on a spring and oscillating. Nor does it behave like a miniature representation of the solar system with little planets going around in orbits. Nor does it appear to be somewhat like a cloud or fog of some sort surrounding the nucleus. It behaves like nothing you have seen before.

There is one simplication at least. Electrons behave in this respect in exactly the same way as photons; they are both screwy, but in exactly in the same way….

The difficulty really is psychological and exists in the perpetual torment that results from your saying to yourself, "But how can it be like that?" which is a reflection of uncontrolled but utterly vain desire to see it in terms of something familiar. I will not describe it in terms of an analogy with something familiar; I will simply describe it. There was a time when the newspapers said that only twelve men understood the theory of relativity. I do not believe there ever was such a time. There might have been a time when only one man did, because he was the only guy who caught on, before he wrote his paper. But after people read the paper a lot of people understood the theory of relativity in some way or other, certainly more than twelve. On the other hand, I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics. So do not take the lecture too seriously, feeling that you really have to understand in terms of some model what I am going to describe, but just relax and enjoy it. I am going to tell you what nature behaves like. If you will simply admit that maybe she does behave like this, you will find her a delightful, entrancing thing. Do not keep saying to yourself, if you can possible avoid it, "But how can it be like that?" because you will get 'down the drain', into a blind alley from which nobody has escaped. Nobody knows how it can be like that.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Character of Physical Law

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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.