Quotes from The Unknown Soldier

Väinö Linna ·  338 pages

Rating: (3.3K votes)


“Liberty medals...Are they trying to bribe me with coloured ribbons? I wouldn't kill a man for one of those things. Or go and be killed. Any shooting I do is to save my own life, and not for a ribbon and a hunk of bronze. [says Mäkelä]”
― Väinö Linna, quote from The Unknown Soldier


“Hän hymähti pari kertaa katkerasti, ei niinkään paljon valtiollisesta vihasta kuin sen vuoksi, että hänen kengässään oli hiekkaa, eikä hän voinut jäädä poistamaan sitä, koska olisi jäänyt toisista liian kauas.”
― Väinö Linna, quote from The Unknown Soldier


“―Viipuri vallattu, kähisi hän eteenpäin, huomaamatta muuttaa äänensävyään, niin että edelläkulkeva mies sai ilmoituksen vihan pakahduttamalla äänellä, ikään kuin pahinta, mitä Lehto tiesi maailmassa olevan, olisi ollut Viipurin valtaus.”
― Väinö Linna, quote from The Unknown Soldier


“Kerran he joutuivat jättämään haavoittuneen, perääntyessään eräältä kukkulalta. Kun he valtasivat mäen takaisin, löysivät he miehen alusvaatteilleen riisuttuna, pistimen reikä kyljessä. Muuan Kariluodon konepistoolimies ampui siitä hyvästä ohimennen, kainalostaan tähdäten, kolme antautunutta. Kaksi päivää myöhemmin sama mies katkesi keskeltä kranaatin täysosumasta. Kuolema lakkasi olemasta moraalinen kysymys”
― Väinö Linna, quote from The Unknown Soldier


About the author

Väinö Linna
Born place: in Urjala, Finland
Born date December 20, 1920
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“The Bronze Horseman would pursue her into her grave. She felt it. Into her eternity, clambering behind her in the night and in the day, in every hour of sorrow, in every minute of weakness, in darkness, in light, through all of America he would be rattling at her heels, the way he had been relentlessly rattling at her through the past eleven hundred days, through the past eleven hundred nights, right into her maddening dust. How much longer for Tatiana's life?”
― Paullina Simons, quote from Tatiana and Alexander


“He is no longer mine to lose, but the grief is there, a gnawing sense of disbelief.”
― Lauren Oliver, quote from Requiem


“The desire for sudden change and the thought of their realization by force often appears among men like a disease and gains ground mainly in young brains; only these brains do not think as they should, do not amount to anything in the end and the heads that think thus do not remain long on their shoulders. For it is not human desires that dispose and administer the things of this world. Desire is like a wind, it sifts the dust from one place to another, sometimes darkens the whole horizon, but in the end calms down and leaves the old and eternal picture of the world. Lasting deeds are realized on this earth only by God’s will, and man is only His humble and blind tool.”
― Ivo Andrić, quote from The Bridge on the Drina


“Like all of us sinners, General Betrishchev was endowed with many virtues and many defects. Both the one and the other were scattered through him in a sort of picturesque disorder. Self-sacrifice, magnanimity in decisive moments, courage, intelligence--and with all that, a generous mixture of self-love, ambition, vanity, petty personal ticklishness, and a good many of those things which a man simply cannot do without.”
― Nikolai Gogol, quote from Dead Souls


“I have been told I've got a darkish personality. A few times."
Takahashi swings his trombone case from his right shoulder to his left. Then he says, "It's not as if our lives are divided simply into light and dark. There's shadowy middle ground. Recognizing and understanding the shadows is what a healthy intelligence does. And to acquire a healthy intelligence takes a certain amount of time and effort. I don't think you have a particularly dark character.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from After Dark


Interesting books

The Best of Oprah's What I Know For Sure
(188)
The Best of Oprah's...
by Oprah Winfrey
Cracked
(5.5K)
Cracked
by Eliza Crewe
The Girl with Borrowed Wings
(0.9K)
The Girl with Borrow...
by Rinsai Rossetti
Still Foolin' 'Em: Where I've Been, Where I'm Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys
(11K)
Still Foolin' 'Em: W...
by Billy Crystal
The Curiosities: A Collection of Stories
(2.5K)
The Curiosities: A C...
by Maggie Stiefvater
Whistling Past the Graveyard
(24K)
Whistling Past the G...
by Susan Crandall

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.