Karel Capek Quotes

#1. 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

#2. Among human beings, a cat is merely a cat; among cats, a cat is a prowling shadow in a jungle.

Karel Capek

#3. All the year round there is spring, all through life is youth; there is always something which may flower.

Karel Capek

#4. Nothing is stranger to man than his own image.

Karel Capek

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

Karel Capek

#6. 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

#7. 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

#8. One never knows whether people have principles on principle or whether for their own personal satisfaction.

Karel Capek

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

Karel Capek

#10. 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

#11. 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

#12. 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

#13. A short life is better for mankind, for a long life would deprive man of his optimism.

Karel Capek

#14. You ought to know that October is the first Spring month.

Karel Capek

#15. There are several ways to lay out a little garden; the best way is to get a gardener.

Karel Capek

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

Karel Capek

#17. 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

#18. You never realize a dog is a man's best friend until you start betting on horses.

Karel Capek

#19. People should be a little loony, Helena. That's the best thing about them.

Karel Capek

#20. 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

#21. The English gentleman is a combination of silence, courtesy, dignity, sport, newspapers and honesty.

Karel Capek

#22. 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

#23. 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

#24. 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

#25. 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

#26. 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

#27. 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

#28. 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

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

Karel Capek

#30. 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

#31. 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

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

Karel Capek

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

Karel Capek

#34. 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

#35. 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

#36. 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

#37. 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

#38. Art must not serve might.

Karel Capek

#39. Great God of the Ants, thou hast granted victory to thy servants. I appoint thee honorary Colonel.

Karel Capek

#40. 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

#41. People with ideas should not be allowed to have an influence on affairs of the world.

Karel Capek

#42. There came into the world an unlimited abundance of everything people need. But people need everything except unlimited abundance.

Karel Capek

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

Karel Capek

#44. 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

#45. 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

#46. Just imagine the silence in the world, if people talked only what they knew

Karel Capek

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

Karel Capek