Quotes by Karel Capek

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