Henryk Sienkiewicz Quotes & Sayings

Nevertheless, in this sea of human wretchedness and malice there bloomed at times compassion, as a pale flower blooms in a putrid marsh. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Thoughts like mine are not reckoned among the delights of life. It is like the dog trying to catch his tail; he does not catch anything. I do not prove anything, only tire myself; but have the satisfaction that another day has passed, or another night gone by. I — Henryk Sienkiewicz

It seems incredible that a man possessing so many conditions of happiness should be not only so little happy, but clearly does not see the reason why he should exist at all. It — Henryk Sienkiewicz

There is probably no greater idler than myself. And I would consider myself a lazy-bones if I did not write so many volumes, and if I did not admire my diligence once I begin writing. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

My position is such that there is no necessity for me to enter into competition with struggling humanity. As to expensive and ruinous pleasures, I am a sceptic who knows how much they are worth, or rather, knows that they are not worth anything. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

This homage has been rendered not to me - for the Polish soil is fertile and does not lack better writers than me - but to the Polish achievement, the Polish genius. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

As to women, I agree that each has three or four souls, but none of them a reasoning one. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

The fact is that between the classes there is a vast gulf that precludes all mutual understanding, and makes simultaneous efforts simply impossible. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Prophet,' he said, 'Your doctrines I do not know; therefore if I accepted them, I would do it out of fear like a coward and a base man. Are you anxious that your faith be professed by cowards and base people? — Henryk Sienkiewicz

But the French writers always had more originality and independence than others, and that regulator, which elsewhere was religion, long since ceased to exist for them. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

What dreadful misfortune awaited them among the savage hordes intoxicated with blood? — Henryk Sienkiewicz

And all at once he saw before him a precipice, as it were without bottom. He was a patrician, a military tribune, a powerful man; but above every power of that world to which he belonged was a madman whose will and malignity it was impossible to foresee. Only such people as the Christians might cease to reckon with Nero or fear him, people for whom this whole world, with its separations and sufferings, was as nothing; people for whom death itself was as nothing. All others had to tremble before him. The terrors of the time in which they lived showed themselves to Vinicius in all their monstrous extent ... Vinicius felt, for the first time in life, that either the world must change and be transformed, or life would become impossible altogether. He understood also this, which a moment before had been dark to him, that in such times only Christians could be happy. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Poland! Poland! The very name carries with it sighings and groanings, nation-murder, brilliance, beauty, patriotism, splendors, self-sacrifice through generations of gallant men and exquisite women; indomitable endurance of bands of noble people carrying through world-wide exile the sacred fire of wrath against the oppressor, and uttering in every clime a cry of appeal to Humanity to rescue Poland. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

If we repay evil with good, then how do we repay the good? — Henryk Sienkiewicz

As I have said, I am comparatively speaking calm, do not wish for anything, or expect anything, am resigned in fact to that kind of spiritual paralysis until the time comes when bodily paralysis carries me off, as it carried off my father. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Walking along the avenues, we had one of the so-called intellectual conversations, which consist a great deal in quoting names of books and authors. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

There speaks again the sceptic; but I shall never be so intoxicated as to lose my capacity of observation. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

At most, a hundred paces separated him from them. The powerful beast, seeing the riders and horses, rose on his fore paws and began to gaze at them. The sun, which now stood low, illuminated his huge head and shaggy breasts, and in that ruddy luster he was like one of those sphinxes which ornament the entrances to ancient Egyptian temples. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

quarrel with Yeremi at the time, still Chigirin — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Anxiety prepares the organism badly for an ordeal which even under more favorable circumstances would not be an easy thing to bear. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

I feel restless, and something seems to weigh me down. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

He would not now conduct little Nell to the coast; he would not convey her by a steamer to Port Said, would not surrender her to Mr. Rawlinson; he himself would not fall into his father's arms and would not hear from his lips that he had acted like a true Pole! The end, the end! In a few days the sun would shine only upon the lifeless bodies and afterwards would dry them up into a semblance of those mummies which slumber in an eternal sleep in the museums in Egypt — Henryk Sienkiewicz

The shots had dispersed the birds; there remained only two marabous, standing between ten and twenty paces away and plunged in reverie. They were like two old men with bald heads pressed between the shoulders. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

It is all my fault! But the blind man when he stumbles over a stone, curses the stone, not the blindness that made him stumble. 17 — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Why does crime, even when as powerful as Caesar, and assured of being beyond punishment, strive always for the appearances of truth, justice, and virtue? Why does it take the trouble? — Henryk Sienkiewicz

It is an altogether wrong idea that the modern product of civilization is less susceptible to love. I sometimes think it is the other way. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Life deserves laughter, hence people laugh at it. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

But I think happiness springs from another source, a far deeper one that doesn't depend on will because it comes from love. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Ground the coursing of flocks run wild. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

In the meantime the groans changed into the protracted, thunderous roar by which all living creatures are struck with terror, and the nerves of people, who do not know what fear is, shake, just as the window-panes rattle from distant cannonading. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

There was only one who understood me, and he understood me wrongly." Miss — Henryk Sienkiewicz

She prefers simply a life in the shape of an Apollo to that of humpbacked Pulcinello; that is her philosophy. She — Henryk Sienkiewicz

It is not Atlas who carries the world on his shoulders, but woman; and sometimes she plays with it as with a ball. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Our souls are full of Gothic arches, pinnacles, twisted traceries we cannot shake off, and of which Greek minds knew nothing. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

the ears of the prince. His guardianship over — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Wealth is not a hindrance, but rather a help towards attaining a proper standing in a chosen field of activity. I confess that as far as I am concerned, it has done me some service as it preserved my character from many a crookedness poverty might have exposed it to. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

An excessive preponderance of an idealistic mood is harmful to society: it creates daydreaming, political Don Quixotism, hope for heavenly intervention. This is an undeniable truth
but it is also true that every extreme is harmful. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

If you borrowed the very moonbeams for your head-dress, if you were a hundred times more beautiful than my fancy can paint, you would be as nothing to me, - less than nothing, because an object of aversion. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

I know that even the meanest person has still at his disposition high-sounding words wherewith to mask his real character. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

I go to church because I am a skeptic in regard to my own skepticism. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

If the infinity of the sea may call out thus, perhaps when a man is growing old, calls come to him, too, from another infinity still darker and more deeply mysterious; and the more he is wearied by life the dearer are those calls to him. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

without noise of drums or — Henryk Sienkiewicz

They were like two poor little leaves in a storm which bore death and annihilation not only to the heads of individuals, but to whole towns and entire tribes. What hand could snatch it and save two small, defenseless children? — Henryk Sienkiewicz

England is never in a hurry because she is eternal. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

On an exhausted field, only weeds grow. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

hatred is degenerated love, — Henryk Sienkiewicz

They did not, however, infect the air as the Sudanese sun dried them up like mummies; all had the hue of gray parchment, and were so much alike that the bodies of the Europeans, Egyptians, and negroes could not be distinguished from each other. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

I know from experience that to one who thinks much and feels deeply, it often seems that he has only to put down his thoughts and feelings in order to produce something altogether out of the common; yet as soon as he sets to work he falls into a certain mannerism of style and common phraseology; his thoughts do not come spontaneously, and one might almost say that it is not the mind that directs the pen, but the pen leads the mind into common, empty artificiality. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Sometimes I have thought that human misery goes far beyond human imagination, - imagination has its limits, and misery, like the vast seas, appears to be without end. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Ah me! what torture to have to deal with virtue, cold and merciless as the letter of the law! — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Tell me,' asked Stas, 'what is a wicked deed?' 'If anyone takes away Kali's cow,' he answered after a brief reflection, 'that then is a wicked deed.' 'Excellent!' exclaimed Stas, 'and what is a good one?' This time the answer came without any reflection: 'If Kali takes away the cow of somebody else, that is a good deed.' Stas was too young to perceive that similar views of evil and good deeds were enunciated in Europe not only by politicians but by whole nations. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Day is like day as two beads in a rosary, unless changes of weather form the only variety. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

He always smiles, even when contemplating nothing good. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Bright, dreadful flashes of lightning rent the darkness and Kali's reply was drowned by a peal of thunder which shook heaven and the wilderness. Simultaneously a whirlwind broke out, tugged the boughs of the tree swept away in the twinkling of an eye the camp-fire, seized the embers, still burning under the ashes, and carried them with sheaves of sparks into the jungle. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

There, about a dozen times during the day, the wind drives over the sky the swollen clouds, which water the earth copiously, after which the sun shines brightly, as if freshly bathed, and floods with a golden luster the rocks, the river, the trees, and the entire jungle. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

A man who leaves memoirs, whether well or badly written, provided they be sincere, renders a service to future psychologists and writers, giving them not only a faithful picture, but likewise human documents that may be relied upon. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Expectancy of anything is always oppressive. When — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Own single law; Hei! be amazed, grow not enraged! thou in thy — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Besides, my old opinions - at least, the greater part of them - are now in tatters, like a worn-out garment. But — Henryk Sienkiewicz

If you consider yourself a superior type, or even if you be such, let me tell you that the sum total of such superiority, is socially, a minus quantity." I — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Evidently the merit depends on the result of the work. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

The sky is one whole, the water another; and between those two infinities the soul of man is in loneliness. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

She wasted and grew so thin that she no longer was a little girl, but the shadow of a little girl. The flame of her life flickered so faintly that it appeared sufficient to blow at it to extinguish it. Stas understood that death did not have to wait for a third attack to take her and he expected it any day or any hour. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Homesickness springs from the isolation of the soul from its surroundings. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Youth is the one worthwhile treasure in this world, no matter how miserable the rest of life might be. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

How utterly unprofitable my life is! These continual searchings of my mind are leading me into the desert. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Amid the stillness of the night, in the depths of the ravine, from the direction in which the corpses lay suddenly resounded a kind of inhuman, frightful laughter in which quivered despair, and joy, and cruelty, and suffering, and pain, and sobbing, and derision; the heart-rending and spasmodic laughter of the insane or condemned. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Aspasia and Xantippe in one. I — Henryk Sienkiewicz

There is in, us a lack of the synthetic faculty which distinguishes things that are important from those that are not. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

The evil genius bent upon wrecking my life had not taken in account one thing: a man crushed and utterly wretched cares less for himself than a happy one. In presence of that indifference fate becomes more or less powerless. I was and am still in that frame of mind that, if angry Fortuna came to me in person, and said: "Go to perdition," I should reply calmly: "Be it so," - not out of sorrow for the loss of Aniela, but from mere indifference to everything within or without me. This — Henryk Sienkiewicz

It has been said that Poland is dead, exhausted, enslaved, but here is the proof of her life and triumph. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

A very poor man lives upon crumbs, and smiles gratefully - through tears. 6 — Henryk Sienkiewicz

The profession of the writer has its thorns about which the reader does not dream. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Every novelist should write something for children at least once in his lifetime. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

In the presence of the storm, thunderbolts, hurricane, rain, darkness, and the lions, which might be concealed but a few paces away, he felt disarmed and helpless. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

I have noticed that the stoutest pessimists, when fate or men try to take something out of their lives, fight tooth and nail, and cry out as loud as the greatest optimists. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

There is within us a moral instinct which forbids us to rejoice at the death of even an enemy. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

Hamlet is the human soul as it was, as it is, and as it will be. In conceiving this drama, Shakspeare overstepped the limit fixed even for genius. I can understand Homer and Dante, studied by the light of their epoch. I can comprehend that they could do what they did; but how an Englishman of the seventeenth century could foreknow psychosis, a science of recent growth, will be to me, in spite of my study of Hamlet, an everlasting mystery. Having — Henryk Sienkiewicz

He began to fear whether in the presence of far greater events, all his acts would not fade into insignificance, just as a drop of rain disappears into the sea. — Henryk Sienkiewicz

It seemed that out of every tear of a martyr new confessors were born, and that every groan on the arena found an echo in thousands of breasts. Caesar was swimming in blood, Rome and the whole pagan world was mad.

But those who had had enough of transgression and madness, those who were trampled upon, those whose lives were misery and oppression, all the weighed down, all the sad, all the unfortunate, came to hear the wonderful tidings of God, who out of love for men had given Himself to be crucified and redeem their sins.

When they found a God whom they could love, they had found that which the society of the time could not give any one, -- happiness and love. — Henryk Sienkiewicz