Karel Čapek Quotes

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.

Si cada uno cumpliera con su deber, el mundo sería un paraíso.

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.

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.

„Představte si to ticho, kdyby lidé říkali jen to, co vědí.

Look, justice has to be as unquestioned as the multiplication tables. I don’t know if you could prove that every theft is wrong; but I can prove to you that every theft is against the law, because I can arrest you every time. If you scattered pearls in the street, then a policeman could give you a ticket for littering. But if you started performing miracles, we couldn’t stop you, unless we called it a public nuisance or unlawful public assembly. There must be some kind of breach of order for us to intervene.

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.

It is worth nothing that their neologisms, pronounciations and simplified grammar was quickly adopted by both the simplest people in the ports and by the so-called best people; and from the ports this way of speaking spread out into the newspapers and was soon in general use. Even many humans stopped attending to grammatical gender, word endings were dropped, declinations disappeared; our golden youth neglected to say r properly and learned to lisp; few educated people were any longer certain what was meant by 'indeterminism' or 'transcendent', simply because these words, even for human beings, were too long and too hard to pronounce. In short, for good or for ill, the newts became able to speak almost every language of the world according to what coast they lived on. About this time, some of the Czech national newspapers began to complain bitterly, no doubt with good reason, that none of the newts could speak their language. If there were salamanders who could speak Portuguese, Dutch and the languages of other small nations why were there none that could speak Czech? It was true, they conceded in regretful and learned terms, that Czechoslovakia had no sea coasts, and that means there will be no marine newts here, but that does not mean that Czechs should not play the same part in the culture of the world as many of the other nations whose language was being taught to thousands of newts, or perhaps even a greater part. It was only right and proper that the newts should also have some knowledge of Czech culture; but how were they to be informed about it if none of them knew the Czech language? It was not likely that someone somewhere in the world would acknowledge this cultural debt and found a chair in Czech and Czechoslovak literature at one of the newt universities. As the poet puts it, 'Trust no-one in the whole wide world, we have no friends out there'.

Já nemám rád prázdné mluvení o slovanství, jako nemám vlastenčení. Prosím vás, kolikpak z
našich slavjanofilů dovede aspoň číst rusky, polsky, srbsky? (..) A nač to mluvení: normální člověk nevytrubuje do světa, ţe
miluje své rodiče, svou ţenu, své děti; to se rozumí samo sebou. Kdyţ miluješ svou vlast,
nemusíš o tom mluvit, ale udělej něco kloudného; o nic jiného nejde.

At the Petrin telegraph station, religion broke out like an epidemic. For no earthly reason, all the telegraph operators on duty were sending out ecstatic messages to the whole world, a sort of new gospel saying that God is coming back down to earth to redeem it ...

Musíte zabíjet a panovat, chcete-li být jako lidé. Čtěte dějiny! Čtěte lidské knihy! Musíte panovat a vraždit, chcete-li být lidmi!

Z názorů kočky

Tohle je můj Člověk. Nebojím se ho.

Je velmi mocný, neboť jí velmi mnoho; je Všežeroucí. Co žereš? Dej mi!

Není krásný, neboť nemá srsti. Nemaje dosti slin, musí se umývat vodou. Mňouká drsně a zbytečně mnoho. Někdy ze spánku přede.

Otevři mi dveře.

Nevím, proč se stal Pánem; snad sežral něco vznešeného.

V mých pokojích zachovává čistotu.

Bere do tlapky černý ostrý dráp a ryje jím do bílých listů. Jinak si neumí hrát. Spí v noci místo ve dne, nevidí potmě, nemá žádných rozkoší. Nikdy nemyslí na krev, nikdy nesní o lovu a boji, nikdy nezpívá láskou.

Často za noci, když já slyším tajemné a kouzelné hlasy, když vidím, jak vše ožívá tmou, on sedí u stolu se skloněnou hlavou a stále, stále drápe svým černým drápkem do bílých listů. Nemysli si, že se o tebe starám. Slyším jen tiché šustění tvého spáru. Někdy šustění umlkne, ubohá tupá hlava už neví, jak si hrát, a tu mi ho přijde líto, i ráčím se přiblížit a tiše mňouknu v sladkém a trýznivém rozladění. Tu tedy můj Člověk mne pozvedne a ponoří do mé srsti svůj teplý obličej. V tu chvíli v něm na okamžik procitne záblesk vyššího života, i vzdychne blahem a přede něco, čemu je skoro rozumět.

Nemysli si však, že se o tebe starám. Ohřál jsi mne, a teď zas půjdu naslouchat černým hlasům.

We´re two, two for everything, for love, life, for a fight and pain, for hours of happiness. Two for wins and losses, for life and for death - TWO!

I don't say that it is a bad or useless profession: but it isn't one of the superlatively fine and striking ones, and the material used is of a strange sort — you don't even see it. But I'd like all the things I used to see to be in it: the ringing hammer-strokes of the smith and the colors of the whisping of the stone-mason, the bustling of the baker, the humility of the poor, and all the lusty strength and skill which men of towering stature put into their work before the astonished and fascinated eyes of a child.

His life was now the life of a collector, and that gave it meaning. Evening after evening he would count and arrange his cuttings under the indulgent eyes of Mrs. Povondra who knew that every man is partly mad and partly a little child; it was better for him to play with his cuttings than to go out drinking and playing cards. She even made some space in the scullery for all the boxes he had made himself for his collection; could anything more be asked of a wife?