“...the heart of a child can take forty-nine blows before it’s damaged for ever and what’s done can never be undone.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Hypocrites,’ replied Cale, ‘I’ve come across a lot of them recently. I mean by that I understand now how many of them there are.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Do you have any idea how mad you sound?’
‘Indeed I do. I have in moments of doubt considered the question of my sanity.’ (...)
‘And?’
‘Then I consider what a piece of work is man. How defective in reason, how mean his facilities, how ugly in form and movement, in action how like a devil, in apprehension how like a cow. The beauty of the world? The paragon of animals? To me the quintessence of dust.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“We are all cynics now, I suppose, and even a mewling infant knows that to save a life is to make an eternal enemy.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Even for the very clever it can be like breaking bones to stand back from something that’s been in front of you all your life.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“It's pointless to blame someone for being themselves and looking to their own interests.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“That’s why it’s much better not to have friends if you have the strength of character to do without them. In the end friends always turn into a nuisance of one kind or another. But if you must have them let them alone and accept that you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Whatever discoveries have been made in the land of self-delusion, many undiscovered regions remain to be explored.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Bůh není nějaký kriminálník, který podvádí v kartách. Chce, abychom se jeho zákony řídili svobodně, z vlastní vůle. Ani Bůh nedokáže nakreslit kulatý čtverec. Bůh je osamělý - chce, aby si lidé poslušnost sami zvolili, a ne aby k ní byli přinuceni strachem.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Lidské srdce je malé, touží ale po velkých věcech. Nestačí ani zasytit psa, ale celý svět pro něj není dost velký.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“...and what is a good weapon but a good idea made murderous flesh?”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“It is not against reason, said the Englishman, to prefer the destruction of the world to a scratch on your finger – how much easier to understand the same price for the gash in your soul.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“The search for knowledge and the discovery of a great weapon are virtually one and the same. War is the father of everything.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Nikdy nepřerušuj nepřítele, když se dopouští omylu.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
“Nemá smysl zlobit se na někoho za to, že je sám sebou a stará se o vlastní zájmy.”
― Paul Hoffman, quote from The Last Four Things
Paul Hoffman
Born place: The United Kingdom
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“Once you admit that the individual is merely a means to serve the ends of the higher entity called society or the nation, most of those features of totalitarian regimes which horrify us follow of necessity. From the collectivist standpoint intolerance and brutal suppression of dissent, the complete disregard of the life and happiness of the individual, are essential and unavoidable consequences of this basic premise, and the collectivist can admit this and at the same time claim that his system is superior to one in which the "selfish" interests of the individual are allowed to obstruct the full realisation of the ends the community pursues.”
― Friedrich A. Hayek, quote from The Road to Serfdom
“In that place things begin to wear away even as they are built; the living die a little more each day. The sun is too far away; light slides endlessly into night; fire and love consume themselves; the heart tries to warm itself with ashes.”
― Patricia A. McKillip, quote from Winter Rose
“In cities and factories, the vices of our nature are more fully displayed,” declared James Hammond of South Carolina in 1829, while rural life “promotes a generous hospitality, a high and perfect courtesy, a lofty spirit of independence . . . and all the nobler virtues and heroic traits.”
― James M. McPherson, quote from Battle Cry of Freedom
“I have to give it to Adam, he’s an excellent bullshitter.”
― Pittacus Lore, quote from The Revenge of Seven
“When you put someone down all the time, eventually they stop listening to the sensible stuff.”
― Jojo Moyes, quote from One Plus One
The Inferno
How to Build a Girl
Bone Gap
The Fever
Demons in Disguise
Little StarBookQuoters 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.
