Karel Capek Quotes & Sayings

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 Capek

Everyone has the best of feelings towards mankind in general, but not towards the individual man. We'll kill men, but we want to save mankind. And that isn't right, your Reverence. The world will be an evil place as long as people don't believe in other people. — Karel Capek

The sole perfection which modern civilization attains is a mechanical one; machines are splendid and flawless, but the life which serves them or is served by them, is neither superb nor brilliant, nor more perfect nor more graceful; nor is the work of the machines perfect; only they, the machines, are like gods. — Karel Capek

You ought to know that October is the first Spring month. — Karel Capek

Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart. — Karel Capek

I find that a real gardener is not a man who cultivates flowers; he is a man who cultivates the soil. He is a creature who digs himself into the earth and leaves the sight of what is on it to us gaping good-for-nothings. He lives buried in the ground. He builds his monument in a heap of compost. If he came into the Garden of Eden, he would sniff excitedly and say: Good Lord, what humus! — Karel Capek

While we only look at Nature it is fair to say that Autumn is the end of the year; but it is still more true that Autumn is the beginning of the year ... Autumn is the time when in fact the leaves bud. Leaves wither because winter begins; but they also wither because spring is already beginning, because new buds are being made, as tiny as percussion caps out of which the spring will crack ... It is only an optical illusion that my flowers die in autumn; for in reality they are born. — Karel Capek

Cognition is not fighting, but once someone knows a lot, he will have much to fight for, so much that he will be called a relativist because of it. — Karel Capek

The English gentleman is a combination of silence, courtesy, dignity, sport, newspapers and honesty. — Karel Capek

It is a foible of our human nature that when we have an extremely unpleasant experience, it gives us a peculiar satisfaction if it is "the biggest" of its disagreeable kind that has happened since the world began. During a heat wave, for instance, we are very pleased if the papers announce that it is "the highest temperature reached since the year 1881," and we feel a little resentment towards the year 1881 for having gone us one better. Or if our ears are frozen till all the skin peels off, it fills us with a certain happiness to learn that "it was the hardest frost recorded since 1786." It is just the same with wars. The war in progress is either the most righteous or the bloodiest, or the most successful, or the longest, since such and such a time; any superlative whatever always affords us the proud satisfaction of having been through something extraordinary and record-breaking. — Karel Capek

It's not possible to search for God using the methods of a detective ... There is no way. You can only wait till God's axe severs your roots: then you will understand that you are here only through a miracle, and you will remain fixed forever in wonderment and equilibrium. — Karel Capek

I've found a place that would amaze you. People used to live there, but now it's all overgrown and no one goes there. Absolutely no one - only me ... Just a little house and a garden. And two dogs. — Karel Capek

Well people are just one species too, aren't they. And it's never stopped them fighting with each other; all the same species and think of all the excuses for war they've used! It hasn't had to be about space to live in, it's been about power, prestige, influence, fame, resources and I don't know what else! — Karel Capek

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 Capek

You never realize a dog is a man's best friend until you start betting on horses. — Karel Capek

Quite obviously a cat trusts human beings; but she doesn't trust another cat because she knows better than we do. — Karel Capek

People should be a little loony, Helena. That's the best thing about them. — Karel Capek

All the year round there is spring, all through life is youth; there is always something which may flower. — Karel Capek

Only years of practice will teach you the mysteries and bold certainty of a real gardener, who treads at random, yet tramples on nothing. — Karel Capek

If dogs could talk, perhaps we would find it as hard to get along with them as we do with people. — Karel Capek

A short life is better for mankind, for a long life would deprive man of his optimism. — Karel Capek

If one must fight or create, it is necessary that this be preceded by the broadest possible knowledge. — Karel Capek

Besides, people never regard anything that serves and benefits them as mysterious; only the things which damage or threaten them are mysterious. — Karel Capek

There are several ways to lay out a little garden; the best way is to get a gardener. — Karel Capek

Socialism is good when it comes to wages, but it tells me nothing when it comes to other questions in life that are more private and painful, for which I must seek answers elsewhere. — Karel Capek

As is well known, all collectors are prepared to steal or murder if it is a question of getting another piece for their collection; but this does not lower their moral character in the least. — Karel Capek

I had written the sentence, 'You mustn't think that the evolution that gave rise to us was the only evolutionary possibility on this planet ... that cultural developments could be shaped through the mediation of another animal species. If the biological conditions were favorable, some civilization not inferior to our own could arise in the depths of the sea ... Would it do the same stupid things mankind has done? Would it invite the same historical calamities? What would we say if some animal other than man declared that its education and its numbers gave it the sole right to occupy the entire world and hold sway over all creation? — Karel Capek

You can have a revolution wherever you like, except in a government office; even were the world to come to an end, you'd have to destroy the universe first and then government offices. — Karel Capek

A guy wanted the vet to cut his dog's tail off. The vet asked why. Well, my mother in law is visiting next month and I want to eliminate any possible indication that she is welcome. — Karel Capek

Just imagine the silence in the world, if people talked only what they knew — Karel Capek

... Be there people either Conservatives or Socialists, Yellows or Reds, the most important thing is - and this is the point I wish particularly to stress - that all of them are right in the plain and moral sense of the word... I ask whether it is not possible to see in the present social conflict of the world an analogous struggle between two, three, five equally serious verities and equally generous idealisms? I think it is possible, and this is the most dramatic element in modern civilization, that a human truth is opposed to another truth no less human, ideal against ideal, positive words against words no less positive, instead of the struggle being, as we are so often told it is, one between noble truth and vile selfish error. — Karel Capek

Great God of the Ants, thou hast granted victory to thy servants. I appoint thee honorary Colonel. — Karel Capek

It was a great thing to be a human being. It was something tremendous. Suddenly I'm conscious of a million sensations buzzing in me like bees in a hive. Gentlemen, it was a great thing. — Karel Capek

There came into the world an unlimited abundance of everything people need. But people need everything except unlimited abundance. — Karel Capek

Relativism is neither a method of fighting, nor a method of creating, for both of these are uncompromising and at times even ruthless; rather, it is a method of cognition. — Karel Capek

Nothing is stranger to man than his own image. — Karel Capek

Relativism is not indifference; on the contrary, passionate indifference is necessary in order for you not to hear the voices that oppose your absolute decrees. — Karel Capek

Art must not serve might. — Karel Capek

I certainly don't know if you could claim that every theft is wrong, but I'll prove to you that every theft is forbidden, by simply locking you up. — Karel Capek

After his death the gardener does not become a butterfly, intoxicated by the perfumes of the flowers, but a garden worm tasting all the dark, nitrogenous, and spicy delights of the soil. — Karel Capek

Much melancholy has devolved upon mankind, and it is detestable to me that might will triumph in the end. — Karel Capek

Man will never be enslaved by machinery if the man tending the machine be paid enough. — Karel Capek

You still stand watch, O human star, burning without a flicker, perfect flame, bright and resourceful spirit. Each of your rays a great idea - O torch which passes from hand to hand, from age to age, world without end. — Karel Capek

Dumb dog. I bought a dog whistle. He won't use it. — Karel Capek

Be these people either Conservatives or Socialists, Yellows or Reds, the most important thing is - and that is the point I want to stress - that all of them are right in the plain and moral sense of the word. — Karel Capek

Any acceleration constitutes progress, Miss Glory. Nature had no understanding of the modern rate of work. From a technical standpoint the whole of childhood is pure nonsense. Simply wasted time. An untenable waste of time. — Karel Capek

The most terrible struggle in our recent history is being played out. It is not only a struggle for our land, it is a struggle for our soul ... A thousand years of tradition suffice for a nation to learn once and for always these two things: to defend its existence, and with all its heart and all its strength to stand on the side of peace and liberty. — Karel Capek

Robots of the world, you are ordered to exterminate the human race. Do not spare the men. Do not spare the women. Preserve only the factories, railroads, machines, mines, and raw materials. Destroy everything else. Then return to work. Work must not cease. — Karel Capek

My dear Miss Glory, Robots are not people. They are mechanically more perfect than we are, they have an astounding intellectual capacity, but they have no soul. — Karel Capek

People with ideas should not be allowed to have an influence on affairs of the world. — Karel Capek

but within the next ten years Rossum's Universal Robots will produce so much wheat, so much cloth, so much everything that things will no longer have any value. Everyone will be able to take as much as he needs. There'll be no more poverty. Yes, people will be out of work, but by then there'll be no work left to be done. Everything will be done by living machines. People will do only what they enjoy. They will live only to perfect themselves. — Karel Capek

Robots do not hold on to life. They can't. They have nothing to hold on with - no soul, no instinct. Grass has more will to live than they do. — Karel Capek

Among human beings, a cat is merely a cat; among cats, a cat is a prowling shadow in a jungle. — Karel Capek

The average cooking in the average hotel for the average Englishman explains to a large extent the English bleakness and taciturnity. Nobody can beam and warble while chewing pressed beef smeared with diabolical mustard. Nobody can exult aloud while ungluing from his teeth a quivering tapioca pudding. — Karel Capek

History is not made by great dreams, but by the petty wants of all respectable, moderately thievish and selfish people, that is, of everyone. All our ideas, loves, plans, heroic ideals, all these lofty things are worthless. — Karel Capek

One never knows whether people have principles on principle or whether for their own personal satisfaction. — Karel Capek

I think I am slowly becoming an anarchist, that this is only another label for my privateness, and I think that you will understand this in the sense of being against collectivity. — Karel Capek

Wherever on this planet ideals of personal freedom and dignity apply, there you will find the cultural inheritance of England. — Karel Capek

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 Capek