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Quotes by Polish Authors
"No man engaged in a work he does not like can preserve many saving illusionsabout himself. The distaste, the absence of glamour, extend from the occupation to the personality. It is only when ourappointed activities seem by a lucky accident to obey the particular earnestness of our temperament that we can taste the comfort of complete self-deception."
"It is possible to stand around with a cocktail in one's hand and talk with everyone, which means with no one."
"Social democracy... is only the advance guard of the proletariat, a small piece of the total working masses; blood from their blood, and flesh from their flesh."
"This conviction brought me, in the summer of 1978, to the Free Trade Unions - formed by a group of courageous and dedicated people who came out in the defense of the workers' rights and dignity."
"Some women flirt more with what they say, and some with what they do."
"I collect human relationships very much the way others collect fine art."
"The mind of man is capable of anything - because everything is in it, all the past as well as the future."
"Marvellous!" he repeated, looking up at me. "Look! The beauty--but that is nothing--look at the accuracy, the harmony. And so fragile! And so strong! And so exact! This is Nature--the balance of colossal forces. Every star is so--and every blade of grass stands so--and the mighty Kosmos il perfect equilibrium produces--this. This wonder; this masterpiece of Nature--the great artist."
"History is the only true teacher, the revolution the best school for the proletariat."
"This enraged the other Nazi so much that the next morning he came to our house and he shot my father."
"We welcome, we welcome this good cooperation between Russia and NATO."
"Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently."
"The nation is a community. Community of individuals, community of generations."
"Well, you know, that was the worst of it - this suspicion of not being inhuman. It would come slowly to one. They howled and leaped, and spun, and made horrid faces; but what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity - like yours - the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar."
"Don't you forget what's divine in the Russian soul and that's resignation."
"With it adult political audiences abandoned cinemas. In their place appeared a void. That previous political audience migrated to the seats in front of their TV."
"This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still."
"Words, as is well known, are the great foes of reality."
"Writing in English is like throwing mud at a wall."
"Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets."
"The scrupulous and the just, the noble, humane, and devoted natures; the unselfish and the intelligent may begin a movement - but it passes away from them. They are not the leaders of a revolution. They are its victims."
"O youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it! To me she was not an old rattle-trap carting about the world a lot of coal for a freight--to me she was the endeavour, the test, the trial of life. I think of her with pleasure, with affection, with regret--as you would think of someone dead you have loved. I shall never forget her. . . . Pass the bottle."
"Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions."
"Preparation for the future was necessary, and he was willing to admit that the great change would perhaps come in the upheaval of a revolution. But he argued that revolutionary propaganda was a delicate work of high conscience. It was the education of the masters of the world. It should be as careful as the education given to kings."
"Nations it may be have fashioned their Governments, but the Governments have paid them back in the same coin."
"Facing it-always facing it-that's the way to get through. Face it!"
"To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence."
"The wilderness had caressed him, and-lo!-he had withered; it had taken him, loved him, embraced him, got into his veins, consumed his flesh, and sealed his soul to its own by the inconceivable ceremonies of some devilish initiation."
"Anything approaching the change that came over his features I have never seen before, and hope never to see again. Oh, I wasn't touched. I was fascinated. It was as though a veil had been rent. I saw on that ivory face the expression of sombre pride, of ruthless power, of craven terror--of an intense and hopeless despair. Did he live his life again in every detail of desire, temptation, and surrender during that supreme moment of complete knowledge? He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision--he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath:The horror! The horror!"
"You know I hate, detest, and can't bear a lie, not because I am straighter than the rest of us, but simply because it appals me. There is a taint of death, a flavour of mortality in lies -which is exactly what I hate and detest in the world -what I want to forget. It makes me miserable and sick, like biting something rotten would do. Temperament, I suppose."
"The sun was fierce, the land seemed to glisten and drip with steam."
"I would just as soon have abused the old village church at home for not being a cathedral."
"All a man can betray is his conscience."
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