Best 50 quotes of Karel Capek on MyQuotes

After his death the gardener does not become a butterfly, intoxicated by the perfumes of the flowers, but a garden worm tasting all the dark, nitrogenous, and spicy delights of the soil.

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.

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

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

As is well known, all collectors are prepared to steal or murder if it is a question of getting another piece for their collection; but this does not lower their moral character in the least.

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.

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.

Great God of the Ants, thou hast granted victory to thy servants. I appoint thee honorary Colonel.

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

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!

I think I am slowly becoming an anarchist, that this is only another label for my privateness, and I think that you will understand this in the sense of being against collectivity.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart.

Man will never be enslaved by machinery if the man tending the machine be paid enough.

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.

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

Only years of practice will teach you the mysteries and bold certainty of a real gardener, who treads at random, yet tramples on nothing.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

The average cooking in the average hotel for the average Englishman explains to a large extent the English bleakness and taciturnity. Nobody can beam and warble while chewing pressed beef smeared with diabolical mustard. Nobody can exult aloud while ungluing from his teeth a quivering tapioca pudding.

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

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

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.

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!

Wherever on this planet ideals of personal freedom and dignity apply, there you will find the cultural inheritance of England.

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.

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.

You never realize a dog is a man's best friend until you start betting on horses.

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

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.

A garden is never finished. In that sense it is like the human world and all human undertakings.

Helena: Will they be happier when they can feel pain? Dr. Gall: On the contrary. But they will be technically more perfect.

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?

I had written the sentence, 'You mustn't think that the evolution that gave rise to us was the only evolutionary possibility on this planet. . . . that cultural developments could be shaped through the mediation of another animal species. If the biological conditions were favorable, some civilization not inferior to our own could arise in the depths of the sea. . . . Would it do the same stupid things mankind has done? Would it invite the same historical calamities? What would we say if some animal other than man declared that its education and its numbers gave it the sole right to occupy the entire world and hold sway over all creation?

It is a foible of our human nature that when we have an extremely unpleasant experience, it gives us a peculiar satisfaction if it is “the biggest” of its disagreeable kind that has happened since the world began. During a heat wave, for instance, we are very pleased if the papers announce that it is “the highest temperature reached since the year 1881,” and we feel a little resentment towards the year 1881 for having gone us one better. Or if our ears are frozen till all the skin peels off, it fills us with a certain happiness to learn that “it was the hardest frost recorded since 1786.” It is just the same with wars. The war in progress is either the most righteous or the bloodiest, or the most successful, or the longest, since such and such a time; any superlative whatever always affords us the proud satisfaction of having been through something extraordinary and record-breaking.

It's astonishing what a number of churches and idiots there are in the world.

Nevím ani proč, ale tato střízlivá Anglie mi připadá nejpohádkovější a nejromantičtější ze všech zemí, které jsem viděl. Snad je to pro ty staré stromy. Nebo ne: to asi dělají trávníky. To dělá to, že se tady chodí po lukách místo po cestičkách. My ostatní si troufáme chodit jen po cestách a pěšinách; to má jistě ohromný vliv na náš duševní život. Když jsem viděl prvního gentlemana brouzdat se po trávníku v Hampton Parku, myslil jsem, že je to pohádkový tvor, ačkoli měl cylindr; čekal jsem, že pojede do Kingstonu na jelenu nebo že začne tančit, nebo že na něj přijde zahradník a strašně mu vynadá. Nestalo se nic, a konečně i já jsem se odvážil pustit se rovnou přes louku k onomu dubu křemeláku, který stojí na začátku tohoto listu na krásném palouku. Nestalo se nic dál; ale nikdy jsem neměl pocit tak neomezené svobody jako v tomto okamžiku. Je to velmi zvláštní: tady patrně člověk neplatí za škodné zvíře. Tady není o něm ponuré mínění, že pod jeho kopyty tráva neroste. Tady má právo jít po louce, jako by byl rusalka nebo velkostatkář. Myslím, že to má značný vliv na jeho povahu a světový názor. Otvírá to zázračnou možnost jít jinudy než cestou a přitom sebe sama nepovažovat za škodnou, rošťáka nebo anarchistu.

Nobody can hate man more than man.

They all had a thousand good economic and political reasons why they couldn’t stop. I’m not a politician or a businessman; how am I supposed to persuade them about these things. What are we supposed to do; quite likely the world will collapse and disappear under water; but at least that will happen for political and economic reasons we can all understand, at least it will happen with the help of science, technology and public opinion, with human ingenuity of all sorts! Not some cosmic catastrophe but just the same old reasons to do with the struggle for power and money and so on. There’s nothing we can do about that.

V holandských koloniích žádní čerti nejsou; jsou-li nějací, tedy ve francouzských. kapitán J. van Toch

Well people are just one species too, aren't they. And it's never stopped them fighting with each other; all the same species and think of all the excuses for war they've used! It hasn't had to be about space to live in, it's been about power, prestige, influence, fame, resources and I don't know what else!