“It suddenly occurred to me that every move on the chessboard is old and has been played by somebody at some time. Maybe our own history has been played out by somebody at some time, and we just move our pieces about in the same moves to strike in the same way as people have always done.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“It is a well–known fact that the greater a man is the less he has on his door–plate.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“Besides, people never regard anything that serves and benefits them as mysterious; only the things which damage or threaten them are mysterious.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“They all had a thousand good economic and political reasons why they couldn’t stop. I’m not a politician or a businessman; how am I supposed to persuade them about these things. What are we supposed to do; quite likely the world will collapse and disappear under water; but at least that will happen for political and economic reasons we can all understand, at least it will happen with the help of science, technology and public opinion, with human ingenuity of all sorts! Not some cosmic catastrophe but just the same old reasons to do with the struggle for power and money and so on. There’s nothing we can do about that.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“«На сцене — пятый акт трагедии человечества, — так начал свой труд Вольф Мейнерт. — Не будем обманываться его лихорадочной предприимчивостью и технической вооруженностью; это лишь предсмертный румянец на лице организма, уже отмеченного печатью гибели. Никогда еще человечество не переживало столь благоприятной конъюнктуры для его существования; однако же — покажите мне хоть одного человека, который был бы счастлив, хоть один класс, который был бы доволен своим положением, или нацию, которая не ощущала бы угрозы для себя. Мы окружены всеми дарами цивилизации, поистине крезовым богатством духовных и материальных ценностей, — однако нас все больше и больше охватывает неотвратимое чувство неуверенности, беспокойства и надвигающейся беды». Немилосердно”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“Too cheap, my dear fellow. Must Nature always be asked to straighten out the mess that man has made? And so, even you don't believe now that they could help themselves? So you see, you see; at the end you would again like to rely on someone or something to save you!”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“Gentlemen, four-fifths of the earth's surface is covered by seas; that is unquestionably too much; the world's surface, the map of oceans and dry land, must be corrected. We shall give the world the workforce of the sea, gentlemen. This will no longer be the style of Captain van Toch; we shall replace the adventure story of pearls by the hymnic paean of labour.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“И что же, вы думаете, они настолько безумны, чтобы, захватив мировое господство, пощадить человека? Вы считаете, что они повторят историческую ошибку человека, которую он допускал с незапамятных времен, — покорять поверженные им нации и классы, вместо того чтобы их истреблять? Человек из чувства гордыни постоянно создавал новые различия между людьми, чтобы затем, обуянный великодушием и идеализмом, снова и снова пытаться их преодолеть. Нет, утверждал Вольф Мейнерт, такой исторической нелепицы саламандры не допустят, хотя бы потому, что ознакомятся с предостережением в моей книге! Они станут наследниками всей человеческой цивилизации; владельцами всего, что делали мы, чего мы стремились достичь, пытаясь покорить мир; но они стали бы врагами себе, если бы вместе со всем этим наследием они захотели бы оставить в живых и нас. Если саламандры хотят сохранить свою однородность, им необходимо избавиться от людей. Если они не сделают этого, рано или поздно мы распространим среди них свойственную нам разрушительную двойственность: способность создавать различия, а затем страдать от них. Но не стоит этого опасаться: сегодня очевидно, что ни одно существо, которое продолжит за человека его историю, не будет повторять его самоубийственных сумасбродств.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“So you see. If only the Newts were fighting-men, then perhaps something might be done; but men against men - that, my friend, can't be stopped.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“His life was now the life of a collector, and that gave it meaning. Evening after evening he would count and arrange his cuttings under the indulgent eyes of Mrs. Povondra who knew that every man is partly mad and partly a little child; it was better for him to play with his cuttings than to go out drinking and playing cards. She even made some space in the scullery for all the boxes he had made himself for his collection; could anything more be asked of a wife?”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“V holandských koloniích žádní čerti nejsou; jsou-li nějací, tedy ve francouzských.
kapitán J. van Toch”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“... dünya belli ki çöküp sular altında kalacak; ama en azından hepimizin anlayabildiği türden politik ve ekonomik nedenleri olacak bunun, en azından bilim, teknoloji ve kamuoyunun yardımıyla, türlü türlü insan icadının yardımıyla olacak. Kozmik bir felaketle değil, o bildik iktidar mücadelesi, para filan gibi nedenlerle olacak. Yapabileceğimiz bir şey yok bu konuda.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“Hay personas que coleccionan sellos; otras impresos antiguos. El señor Povondra [...] buscó durante largos años un complemento a su vida; [...] pero una tarde, cuando menos lo esperaba, se presentó en su vida lo que le faltaba para hacerla completa. Las grandes cosas, por lo general, ocurren de repente (p.111).
- Préstame las tijeras [...]. Voy a recortar todo lo que publican los periódicos sobre esas salamandras, para dejar cuando muera algún recuerdo mío.
Y así fue como el señor Povondra empezó a recoger los recortes que hablaban sobre las salamandras. [...] No ocultaremos que, después de cierto nerviosismo sufrido en los primeros días, aprendió en su café preferido a recortar de los periódicos que allí tenían a disposición de la clientela todos los artículos que trataban sobre las salamandras, y eso, en las mismas narices del camarero, sin que éste se diese cuenta y con la habilidad de un prestidigitador. Como se sabe, todos los coleccionistas estarían dispuestos a robar o asesinar con tal de conseguir algo nuevo para su colección. Pero esto no rebaja, de ninguna manera, su carácter moral.
Ahora tenía ya un sentido su vida, porque era la vida de un coleccionista (p.113).”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“Они выбросили из человеческой цивилизации все, что не было подчинено какой-то практической цели, что было связано с игрой, фантазией или древностью, — и тем самым лишили ее всего человеческого, переняв только голый утилитаризм, техническую и практическую ее сторону. И вот эта-то убогая карикатура на человеческую цивилизацию процветает — создает технические чудеса, обновляет нашу старую планету и, в конце концов, начинает вдохновлять само человечество. Фауст теперь будет учиться секретам успеха и посредственности у своего ученика и слуги! Или”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“The earth will probably sink and drown; but at least it will be the result of generally acknowledged political and economic ideas, at least it will be accomplished with the help of the science, industry, and public opinion, with the application of all human ingenuity! No cosmic catastrophy, nothing but state, official, economic, and other causes. Nothing can be done to prevent it.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
“Stop it now! D’you think I can work miracles? What must be will be. Let everything take its inexorable course! There’s some kind of consolation even in this: that whatever is happening follows its own inevitability and its own law.”
― Karel Čapek, quote from War with the Newts
Karel Čapek
Born place: in Malé Svatoňovice, Czech Republic
Born date January 9, 1890
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“I also read that spending time with a pedophile can be like a drug high. There was this girl who said it’s as if the pedophile lives in a fantastic kind of reality, and that fantasticness infects everything. Kind of like they’re children themselves, only full of the knowledge that children don’t have. Their imaginations are stronger than kids’ and they can build realities that small kids would never be able to dream up. They can make the child’s world… ecstatic somehow. And when it’s over, for people who’ve been through this, it’s like coming off of heroin and, for years, they can’t stop chasing the ghost of how it felt. One girl said that it’s like the earth is scorched and the grass won’t grow back. And the ground looks black and barren but inside it’s still burning.”
― Margaux Fragoso, quote from Tiger, Tiger: A Memoir
“She is all that is gracious, Her spirit is comely, The work of her hands is fair.”
― Ellen Kushner, quote from Thomas the Rhymer
“Worrying about offending people drags us back to the lowest common denominator
Our enemies are not the digital bits that dance across our screens but the neural impulses that animate our lizard brains”
― Brooke Gladstone, quote from The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media
“To go down and up two hands-and-knee climbing ravines and then out into the moonlight and the long, too-steep shoulder of mountain that you climbed one foot up to the other, one foot after the other, one stride at a time, leaning forward against the grade and the altitude, dead tired and gun weary, single file in the moonlight across the slope, on up and to the top where it was easy, the country spread in the moonlight, then up and down and on, through the small hills, tired but now in sight of the fires and”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from Green Hills of Africa
“ [?] Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind† and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on† toward the goal to win the prize† for which God has called† me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
― quote from Quest Study Bible: NIV
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