Karel 4 Quotes & Sayings

When I was young I once found a book in a Dutch translation, 'The leaves of Grass'. It was the first time a book touched me by its feeling of freedom and open spaces, the way the poet spoke of the ocean by describing a drop of water in his hand. Walt Whitman was offering the world an open hand (now we call it democracy) and my 'Monument for Walt Whitman' became this open hand with mirrors, so you can see inside yourself. — Karel Appel

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

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

The word "robot" comes from the 1920 Czech play R.U.R. by playwright Karel Capek ("robot" means "drudgery" in the Czech language and "labor" in Slovak). — Michio Kaku

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

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

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

they were left alone. "So what are you doing here?" Karel asked, his smile turning into a frown. "Shouldn't you be off mating your queen, showing her off to — Milly Taiden

This may seem labouring the obvious, but in Japan one meets intelligent people who claim that 'logic' is something invented in the West to allow Westerners to win discussions. Indeed, the belief is widespread that the Japanese can as happily do without logic now as they supposedly have for centuries past. — Karel Van Wolferen

I'm now beginning to feel that the pessimistic vision is not for the movies. — Karel Reisz

Minority views expressed in films simply don't sell tickets. — Karel Reisz

I built up a knowledge of 1960s and '70s British films because my dad used to work nights, and I'd sit up with my mum and watch films - 'How I Won the War' and the films of Richard Lester, Karel Reisz and John Schlesinger. — Nick Moran

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

The founders of modern Burma believed that they could guarantee prosperity and happiness by correctly choosing the moment for the rebirth of our country. They consulted astrologists and fortune-tellers, men of impeccable behaviour and uncontested wisdom, who were devout Buddhists to boot. Acting on the advice of these holy arithmeticians, they declared independence on the fourth of January in the year 1948, at twenty past four in the morning. Every year since then, we have commemorated that happy occasion on that day at that same impossible hour - in the full awareness that independence has caused more misfortune than all of the oppression and exploitation of the entire colonial period put together. — Karel Glastra Van Loon

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 British cinema had been very dull and conformist. — Karel Reisz

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

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

The goal, Karel said, was not to tell explicit lies but to destroy the distinction between the true and the false, so that lying becomes neither necessary nor possible. — Roger Scruton

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

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

Art must not serve might. — Karel Capek

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

My brush-strokes start in nothing and they end in nothing, and in-between you find the image. — Karel Appel

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

Take Tom Jones and mix him with Enrico Caruso, the Italian tenor-cum-castrato singer. Then add tons of pathetic love songs, faked sex appeal and musical kleptomania focusing on Western hits from the 1970s. Spice it up with a political flexibility rare even for Central European standards and a personal status close to that of the Pope. What do you get? Karel Gott, Czech pop music's most mega-super, long-lasting and brightest star. — Terje B. Englund