Quotes from The Good Soldier Švejk

“After debauches and orgies there always follows the moral hangover.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“When Švejk subsequently described life in the lunatic asylum, he did so in exceptionally eulogistic terms: 'I really don't know why those loonies get so angry when they're kept there. You can crawl naked on the floor, howl like a jackal, rage and bite. If anyone did this anywhere on the promenade people would be astonished, but there it's the most common or garden thing to do. There's a freedom there which not even Socialists have ever dreamed of.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“Jesus Christ was innocent too,' said Svejk, 'and all the same they crucified him. No one anywhere has ever worried about a man being innocent. Maul halten und weiter dienen ['Grin and bear it and get on with the job'] - as they used to tell us in the army. That's the best and finest thing of all.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“And somewhere from the dim ages of history the truth dawned upon Europe that the morrow would obliterate the plans of today.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“The famous field altar came from the Jewish firm of Moritz Mahler in Vienna, which manufactured all kinds of accessories for mass as well as religious objects like rosaries and images of saints.

The altar was made up of three parts, lberally provided with sham gilt like the whole glory of the Holy Church.

It was not possible without considerable ingenuity to detect what the pictures painted on these three parts actually represented. What was certain was that it was an altar which could have been used equally well by heathens in Zambesi or by the Shamans of the Buriats and Mongols.

Painted in screaming colors it appeared from a distance like a coloured chart intended for colour-blind railway workers. One figure stood out prominently - a naked man with a halo and a body which was turning green, like the parson's nose of a goose which has begun to rot and is already stinking. No one was doing anything to this saint. On the contrary, he had on both sides of him two winged creatures which were supposed to represent angels. But anyone looking at them had the impression that this holy naked man was shrieking with horror at the company around him, for the angels looked like fairy-tale monsters and were a cross between a winged wild cat and the beast of the apocalypse.

Opposite this was a picture which was meant to represent the Holy Trinity. By and large the painter had been unable to ruin the dove. He had painted a kind of bird which could equally well have been a pigeon or a White Wyandotte. God the Father looked like a bandit from the Wild West served up to the public in an American film thriller.

The Son of God on the other hand was a gay young man with a handsome stomach draped in something like bathing drawers. Altogether he looked a sporting type. The cross which he had in his hand he held as elegantly as if it had been a tennis racquet.

Seen from afar however all these details ran into each other and gave the impression of a train going into a station.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“Those who boggle at strong language are cowards, because it is real life which is shocking them, and weaklings like that are the very people who cause most harm to culture and character. They would like to see the nation grow up into a group of over-sensitive little people--masturbators of false culture...”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“Preparations for the slaughter of mankind have always been made in the name of God or some supposed higher being which men have devised and created in their own imagination.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“Sometimes I notice I'm demented, especially at sunset.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“The lieutenant’s fooling around again with the telegraph girl at the station,” said the corporal, after he had gone. “He’s been running after her for a fortnight and he’s always frightfully furious when he comes from the telegraph office and he says about her: “She’s a whore. She won’t sleep with me!”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“All along the line,' said the volunteer, pulling the blanket over him, 'everything in the army stinks of rottenness. Up till now the wide-eyed masses haven't woken up to it. With goggling eyes they let themselves be made into mincemeat and then when they're struck by a bullet they just whisper, "Mummy!" Heroes don't exist, only cattle for the slaughter and the butchers in the general staffs. But in the end every body will mutiny and there will be a fine shambles. Long live the army! Goodnight!”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“I suffered the misfortune that I sat down at a table and started drinking one glass of beer after another.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“This is what opportunity brings with it. It's the self-determination of man. Every man in the course of his life eternal life undergoes countless changes and has to appear once in this worlds as a thief in certain periods of his activity.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“Vopravdu nevím, proč se ti blázni zlobějí, když je tam drží. Člověk tam může lézt nahej po podlaze, vejt jako šakal, zuřit a kousat. Jestli by to udělal člověk někde na promenádě, tak by se lidi divili, ale tam to patří k něčemu prachobyčejnýmu. Je tam taková svoboda, vo kerej se ani socialistům nikdy nezdálo.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“War demanded valour even in pilfering.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“Austria's victory crawled out of her latrines.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“At that moment Švejk looked as if he had fallen down from the sky from some other planet and he was now looking with naïve wonder at a new world where people were demanding from him idiotic nonsense which he had never heard of before . . . .”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

“You're right,' said the corporal. 'It serves editors like that right. They only stir the people up. Last year when I was still only a lance-corporal I had an editor under me and he called me nothing else but a disaster for the army, but when I taught him unarmed drill and he sweated, he always used to say: "Please respect the human being in me." But I gave him hell for his human being when the order was "flat down" and there were a lot of puddles in the barracks courtyard.
...
As I said, he was always on about his "human being" and nothing else. Once when he was reflecting over a puddle in which he had to plop down when he did his "flat down" I said to him: "When you're always talking about a human being even when you're in the mud remember that man was created out of the dust of the ground and it must have been O.K. for him.”
― Jaroslav Hašek, quote from The Good Soldier Švejk

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Popular quotes

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“[33]* In the seventh month, when the heat is dreadful, everything in the building is kept open all through the night, and it’s delightful to wake on moonlit nights and lie there looking out. Dark nights too are delightful, and as for the sight of the moon at dawn, words cannot describe the loveliness. Picture her lying there, on a fresh new mat 1 placed near the outer edge of the gleaming wooden aisle-room floor, the low standing curtain pushed to the back of the room in a quite unseemly way. 2 It should normally be placed at the outer edge, but perhaps she’s concerned about being seen from within. Her lover must have already left. She is lying asleep, a robe drawn up over her head 3 – it is pale greyish-violet with deep violet inner lining, the outer surface a little faded, or perhaps it is a stiffish robe of rich gleaming damask. Beneath this, she is wearing a clove-tan or yellow gossamer-silk shift, and the long strings of her unlined scarlet skirted trousers trailing undone from below the hem of her clothing tell us that she must have fallen asleep with trousers still untied after her lover departed. The soft luxury of hair that lies piled in waves beside her speaks of its wonderful length.”
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