Karel Capek Quotes

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Nothing is stranger to man than his own image.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

Art must not serve might.

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.

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!"

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.

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.

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