Karel Čapek quotes

There are several ways to lay out a little garden; the best way is to get a gardener. (Karel Čapek)
Nothing is stranger to man than his own image.
Karel Čapek
There came into the world an unlimited abundance of everything people need. But people need everything except unlimited abundance.
Karel Čapek
Much melancholy has devolved upon mankind, and it is detestable to me that might will triumph in the end.
Karel Čapek
One never knows whether people have principles on principle or whether for their own personal satisfaction.
Karel Čapek
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 Čapek
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 Čapek
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 Čapek
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 Čapek
Great God of the Ants, thou hast granted victory to thy servants. I appoint thee honorary Colonel.
Karel Čapek
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 Čapek)
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 Čapek
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 Čapek
People should be a little loony, Helena. That's the best thing about them.
Karel Čapek
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 Čapek
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 Čapek
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 Čapek
If dogs could talk, perhaps we should find it as hard to get on with them as we do with people.
Karel Čapek
Art must not serve might.
Karel Čapek
Wherever on this planet ideals of personal freedom and dignity apply, there you will find the cultural inheritance of England.
Karel Čapek
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 Čapek)
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 Čapek
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 Čapek
Man will never be enslaved by machinery if the man tending the machine be paid enough.
Karel Čapek
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 Čapek