Quotes by Polish Authors - Page 5

The killer whale's heart weighs one hundred kilosbut in other respects it is light.There is nothing more animal-likethan a clear conscienceon the third planet of the Sun.
Wisława Szymborska
My choices are rejections, since there is no other way,but what I reject is more numerous,denser, more demanding than before.A little poem, a sigh, at the cost of indescribable loss.
Wisława Szymborska
It’s a mistake to believe that they (parents) are responsible for their children’s best future. This responsibility is on their children, and that’s the message they should be conveying to their children on a daily basis.
Lukasz Laniecki
Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.
Marie Curie
Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.
Joseph Conrad
...But first appearances are often deceptive. Not everything monstrous looking is evil, and not everything fair is good...and in every fairytale, there is a grain of truth.
Andrzej Sapkowski
The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single start relieved the darkness behind the glass.
Stanisław Lem
None of us has an obligation to accept the definitions of ‘respect’ and ‘gratitude’ our parents espoused, especially when those definitions can be used to guilt-trip us, or when they are being used for the purpose of forcing us to do certain things (as an extortion mechanism).
Lukasz Laniecki
Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create.
John Paul II
Too caustic? To hell with cost we'll make the picture anyhow. Every director bites the hand that lays the golden egg. We have all passed a lot of water since then.
Samuel Goldwyn
I felt myself being invaded through and through, I crumbled, disintegrated, and only emptiness remained.
Stanisław Lem
It’s safer/ easier to follow the script and complain how broken some things are in that script, than to attempt to change those things.
Lukasz Laniecki
From success you get a lot of things but not that great inside thing that love brings you.
Sam Goldwyn
The writer wants to be understood much more than he wants to be respected or praised or even loved. And that perhaps, is what makes him different from others.
Leo. C Rosten
A foolish environmentalist wants to save nature from the greed of the market by exposing it to the tragedy of the commons. A smart environmentalist wants to save nature from the tragedy of the commons by exposing it to the greed of the market.
Jakub Bożydar Wiśniewski
Yes, it's comforting to know, when you think about it, that only man can be a bastard
Stanisław Lem
I found myself back in the sepulchral city resenting the sight of people hurrying through the streets to filch a little money from each other, to devour their infamous cookery, to gulp their unwholesome beer, to dream their insignificant and silly dreams. They trespassed upon my thoughts. They were intruders whose knowledge of life was to me an irritating pretence, because I felt so sure they could not possibly know the things I knew. Their bearing, which was simply the bearing of commonplace individuals going about their business in the assurance of perfect safety, was offensive to me like the outrageous flauntings of folly in the faces of a danger it is unable to comprehend.
Joseph Conrad
For the human soul is virtually indestructible, and its ability to rise from the ashes remains as long as the body draws breath.
Alice MIller
A poor man is a living dead one.
Anzia Yezierska
A most deplorable sight," she said, folding her arms across her chest. "Someone who has lost everything. You know, minstrel, it is interesting. Once, I thought it was impossible to lose everything, that something always remains. Always. Even in times of contempt, when naivety is capable of backfiring in the cruellest way, one cannot lose everything. But he... he lost several pints of blood, the ability to walk properly, partial use of his left hand, his witcher's sword, the woman he loves, the daughter he had gained by a miracle, his faith... Well, I thought, he must have been left with something. But I was wrong. He has nothing now. Not even a razor."Dandelion remained silent. The dryad did not move."I asked if you had a hand in this," she began a moment later. "But I think there was no need. It's obvious you had a hand in it. It's obvious you are his friend. And if someone has friends, and he loses everything in spite of that, it's obvious the friends are to blame. For what they did, or for what they didn't do.
Andrzej Sapkowski
I saw only the reality of his destiny, which he had knownhow to follow with unfaltering footsteps, that life begun in humblesurroundings, rich in generous enthusiasms, in friendship, love, war--inall the exalted elements of romance.
Joseph Conrad
Humankind, which discovers its capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through its own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of things that are. People think that they can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to their wills, as though the earth did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which human beings can indeed develop but must not betray.
John Paul II
Not all are called to be artists in the specific sense of the term. Yet, as Genesis has it, all men and women are entrusted with the task of crafting their own life: in a certain sense, they are to make of it a work of art, a masterpiece.
John Paul II
Hunters for gold or pursuers of fame, they all had gone out on that stream, bearing the sword, and often the torch, messengers of the might within the land, bearers of a spark from the sacred fire.
Joseph Conrad
We live in the fairy forest of huge trees which is on the other side of the lake, said Farina.
Magda M. Olchawska
If you were to stare at this box of matches, you could extract entire worlds out of it. If you search for tastes in a book, you will certainly find them because it was said: seek and ye shall find. But a critic should not rifle, search. Let him sit back with folded arms, waiting for the book to find him. Talents should not be sought with a microscope, a talent should let people know about itself by striking at all the bells.
Witold Gombrowicz
History is much more the product of chaos than of conspiracy
Zbigniew Brzeziński
I write in order to comprehend, not to express myself.
Anna Kamieńska
There's this parallel, perhaps less conscious desire, which is to numb myself to the world. To deal with the world tomorrow. Living is difficult. Dying is difficult.
Jowita Bydlowska
I was left behind with the immensity of existing things. A river, suffering because reflections of clouds and tress and not clouds and trees.
Czesław Miłosz
Real peace is not just a matter of structures and mechanisms. It rests above all on the adoption of a style of human coexistence marked by mutual acceptance and a capacity to forgive from the heart. We all need to be forgiven by others, so we must all be ready to forgive. Asking and granting forgiveness is something profoundly worthy of every one of us,
John Paul II
Memories come to mind like excavated statuesthat have misplaced their heads.
Wisława Szymborska
The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted...Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Language is the only homeland.
Czesław Miłosz
He lived then before me, he lived as much as he had ever lived---a shadow insatiable of splendid appearances, of frightful realities, a shadow darker than the shadow of the night, and draped nobly in the folds of a gorgeous eloquence. The vision seemed to enter the house with me---the stretcher, the phantom-bearers, the wild crowd of obedient worshipers, the gloom of the forests, the glitter of the reach between the murky bends, the beat of the drum regular and muffled like the beating of a heart, the heart of a conquering darkness.
Joseph Conrad
Postmodernity means the exhilarating freedom to pursue anything, yet mind-boggling uncertainty as to what is worth pursuing and in the name of what one should pursue it.
Zygmunt Bauman
I have defined poetry as a 'passionate pursuit of the Real.
Czesław Miłosz
The work of human thought should withstand the test of brutal, naked reality. If it cannot, it is worthless. Probably only those things are worthwhile which can preserve their validity in the eyes of a man threatened with instant death.
Czesław Miłosz
Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.
John Paul II
To be alive to be able to see to walk ... it's all a miracle. I have adapted the technique of living life from miracle to miracle.
Arthur Rubinstein
I predict a bad end for your race, humans,' Zoltan Chivay said grimly. 'Every sentient creature on this earth, when it falls into want , poverty and misfortune, usually cleaves to his own. Because it's easier to survive the bad times in a group, helping one another. But you humans, you just wait for a chance to make money from other people's mishaps. When there's hunger you don't want want to share out your food, you just devour the weakest ones. The practice works among wolves, since it lets the healthiest and strongest individuals survive. But among sentient races selection of that kind usually allows the biggest bastards to survive and dominate the rest.
Andrzej Sapkowski
The local liberal press, much molested by the censorship, had its courageous and skilful writers such as VM Doroshevich, the master of that semi-literary and semi-journalistic essay at which Bronstein himself was one day to excel.
Isaac Deutscher
How does one kill fear I wonder? How do you shoot a spectre through the heart slash off its spectral head take it by the spectral throat?
Joseph Conrad
It is not science which leads to unbelief but rather ignorance. The ignorant man thinks he understands something provided that he sees it every day. The natural philosopher walks amid enigmas, always striving to understand and always half-understanding. He learns to believe what he does not understand, and that is a step on the road to faith.
Jan Potocki
The sea has never been friendly to man. At most it has been the accomplice of human restlessness.
Joseph Conrad
Chapulier's Rule (the law of least resistance). If the machine is not too bright and incapable of reflection, it does whatever you tell it to do. But a smart machine will first consider which is more worth its while: to perform the given task or, instead, to figure some way out of it....The Great Mendacitor, for example, for nine years in charge of the Saturn meliorization project, did absolutely nothing on that planet, sending out piles of fake progress reports, invoices, requisition forms, and either bribed his supervisors or kept them in a state of electronic shock.
Stanisław Lem
It was a dark story.
Joseph Conrad
More than once have I thought, Why does crime, even when as powerful as Cæsar, and assured of being beyond punishment, strive always for the appearances of truth, justice, and virtue? Why does it take the trouble? I consider that to murder a brother, a mother, a wife, is a thing worthy of some petty Asiatic king, not a Roman Cæsar; but if that position were mine, I should not write justifying letters to the Senate. But Nero writes. Nero is looking for appearances, for Nero is a coward. But Tiberius was not a coward; still he justified every step he took. Why is this? What a marvellous, involuntary homage paid to virtue by evil! And knowest thou what strikes me? This, that it is done because transgression is ugly and virtue is beautiful. Therefore a man of genuine æsthetic feeling is also a virtuous man. Hence I am virtuous.
Henryk Sienkiewicz
When I was young I used to have successes with women because I was young. Now I have successes with women because I am old. Middle age was the hardest part.
Artur Rubinstein
The Witcher had a knife to his throat. He was wallowing in a wooden tub, brimfull with soapsuds, his head thrown agains the slippery rim. The bitter taste of soap lingered in his mouth as the knife, blunt as a doorknob, scraped his Adam's apple painfully and moved towards his chin with a grating sound.
Andrzej Sapkowski
Come now, Tichy. For half a century civilization hasn't been left to its own devices. A hundred years ago a certain Dior was dictating fashions in clothing. Today this sort of regulating has embraced all walks of life. If prostheticism is voted in, I assure you, in a couple of years everyone will consider the possession of a soft, hairy, sweating body to be shameful and indecent. A body needs washing, deodorizing, caring for, and even then it breaks down, while in a prostheticized society you can snap on the loveliest creations of modern engineering. What woman doesn't want to have silver iodide instead of eyes, telescoping breasts, angel's wings, iridescent legs, and feet that sing with every step?
Stanisław Lem
Character is a lack of doubt, character is stubbornly persevering in an intention no matter how senseless it is, character is a lack of imagination, character is inborn dullness, character is the misfortune of humanity.
Tadeusz Konwicki
Sometimes it seems to me that man is come where he is not wanted, where there is no place for him; for if not, why should he want all the place? Why should he run about here and there making a great noise about himself, talking about the stars, disturbing the blades of grass?
Joseph Conrad
One cannot properly drink without self-deception: the lips have to deny the liquor that just passed down the throat. It was surely for the relief of drunkards that the Lord God did not write upon the stone tablets the commandment: thou shalt not lie. The word has to deny the addiction. Among the tribe of alcoholics, lying is a badge of honor - the truth is first an indiscretion, later an affront, and finally a source of despair. If you truly drink, you have to announce to all and sundry that you do not drink; if you admit you drink, that means you do not truly drink. True all-out drinking has to be concealed; anyone who reveals it is giving in, confessing to helplessness, and all that remains for him is weeping, the gnashing of teeth, and the 12 step program.
Jerzy Pilch
My task which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel — it is, before all, to make you see. That — and no more, and it is everything. If I succeed, you shall find there according to your deserts: encouragement, consolation, fear, charm — all you demand; and, perhaps, also that glimpse of truth for which you have forgotten to ask.
Joseph Conrad
On Saturday afternoons I used to go for a walk with my mother. From the dusk of the hallway, we stepped at once into the brightness of the day. The passerby, bathed in melting gold, had their eyes half-closed against the glare, as if they were drenched with honey, upper lips were drawn back, exposing the teeth. Everyone in this golden day wore that grimace of heat–as if the sun had forced his worshippers to wear identical masks of gold. The old and the young, women and children, greeted each other with these masks, painted on their faces with thick gold paint; they smiled at each other's pagan faces–the barbaric smiles of Bacchus.
Bruno Schulz
Not the power to remember but its very opposite the power to forget is a necessary condition for our existence.
Sholem Asch
If reason ruled the world would history even exist?
Ryszard Kapuściński
I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.
Marie Curie
Original sin is not only the violation of a positive command … but … attempts … to abolish fatherhood, destroying its rays which permeate the created world, placing in doubt the truth about God who is Love and leaving man with only a sense of the master-slave relationship.
John Paul II