Martin Svoboda

Verified author @quick, member from April 4, 2011
Honoré de Balzac photo

“When women love, they forgive everything, even our crimes; when they do not love, they cannot forgive anything, not even our virtues.”

Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850) French writer

Lorsque les femmes nous aiment, elles nous pardonnent tout, même nos crimes; lorsqu&#x27;elles ne nous aiment pas, elles ne nous pardonnent rien, pas même nos vertus! <br class="br"> La Muse du Département http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/La_Muse_du_d%C3%A9partement_-_II_-_34 (1843), translated by James Waring, part II, ch. XXXIV (part XIII in the translated version).

Erwin Schrödinger photo

“Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness.”

Erwin Schrödinger (1887–1961) Austrian physicist

As quoted in The Observer (11 January 1931); also in Psychic Research (1931), Vol. 25, p. 91
Context: Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.

Volodymyr Zelensky photo

“When you attack us, you will see our faces. Not our backs, but our faces.”

Volodymyr Zelensky (1978) 6th President of Ukraine

Context: But if we come under attack, if we face an attempt to take away our country, our freedom, our lives and the lives of our children, we will defend ourselves. When you attack us, you will see our faces. Not our backs, but our faces.

Volodymyr Zelensky photo

“The fight is here. I need ammunition, not a ride.”

Volodymyr Zelensky (1978) 6th President of Ukraine

Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/02/26/europe/ukraine-zelensky-evacuation-intl/index.html

Volodymyr Zelensky photo

“The most terrible iron is not missiles, aircraft, and tanks, but shackles.”

Volodymyr Zelensky (1978) 6th President of Ukraine

Source: https://twitter.com/kyivindependent/status/1562384096130736128

Martin Heidegger photo
Maya Angelou photo

“Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.”

Maya Angelou book Letter to My Daughter

Variant: Be a rainbow in somebody else's cloud.
Source: Letter to My Daughter

Hannah Arendt photo

“Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.”

Hannah Arendt (1906–1975) Jewish-American political theorist

Jean Cocteau photo

“I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Simone de Beauvoir photo
Charles Baudelaire photo

“Do not look for my heart any more; the beasts have eaten it.”

Charles Baudelaire book Les Fleurs du mal

Ne cherchez plus mon cœur; des monstres l’ont mangé. <br class="br">&quot;Causerie&quot; [Conversation] http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Les_Fleurs_du_mal/1857/Causerie <br class="br">Les fleurs du mal (Flowers of Evil) (1857) <br class="br">Source: Les Fleurs du Mal

Haruki Murakami photo

“Once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”

Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore

Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)
Context: And you really will have to make it through that violent, metaphysical, symbolic storm. No matter how metaphysical or symbolic it might be, make no mistake about it: it will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades. People will bleed there, and you will bleed too. Hot, red blood. You'll catch that blood in your hands, your own blood and the blood of others. And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.

Chapter One

Paul Dirac photo

“I was taught at school never to start a sentence without knowing the end of it.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Printonly/Dirac.html

Paul Dirac photo

“If we are honest — and scientists have to be — we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

Remarks made during the Fifth Solvay International Conference (October 1927), as quoted in Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations (1971) by Werner Heisenberg, pp. 85-86; these comments prompted the famous remark later in the day by Wolfgang Pauli: "Well, our friend Dirac, too, has a religion, and its guiding principle is "God does not exist and Dirac is His prophet." Variant translations and paraphrases of that comment are listed in the "Quotes about Dirac" section below.
Context: If we are honest — and scientists have to be — we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can't for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards — in heaven if not on earth — all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.

Seneca the Younger photo

“For no man is free who is a slave to his body.”
Nemo liber est qui corpori servit.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XCII: On the Happy Life

Seneca the Younger photo

“Worse than war is the very fear of war.”
peior est bello timor ipse belli.

Seneca the Younger Thyestes

Thyestes, line 572 (Chorus).
Tragedies

“Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”

Dale Carnegie book How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1948), p. 237. Part 8 : How I Conquered Worry,

Anaïs Nin photo

“Life shrinks or expands according to one's courage.”

Anaïs Nin (1903–1977) writer of novels, short stories, and erotica

As quoted in French Writers of the Past (2000) by Carol A. Dingle, p. 126
Variant: Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage.

Mehmed II photo

“In order to see the boundaries of the probabilities, need to try impossible.”

Mehmed II (1432–1481) Ottoman sultan

During the fall of Constantinople, when he said that the ships would pass by land.