Inspirational Quotes on Classics

“And now for your blunders. On your own showing you first of all allowed the patient to read a book he really enjoyed, because he enjoyed it and not in order to make clever remarks about it to his new friends.”

“The heroic books, even if printed in the character of our mother tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times”

“as long as we possess the body, and our soul is contaminated by such an evil, we'll surely never adequately gain what we desire —and that, we say, is truth. (...) besides, it fills us up with lusts and desires, with fears and fantasies of every kind, and with any amount of trash, so that really and truly we are, as the saying goes, never able to think of anything at all because of it.”

“It is dreadful that one cannot tear our the past by the roots. We cannot tear it out but we can hide the memory of it.”

“...except life's usual answer to the most complex and insoluble questions. That answer is: live in the needs of the day, that is find forgetfulness.”

“The modern cheap and fertile press, with all its translations, has done little to bring us nearer to the heroic writers of antiquity.”

“Für manche geschickten Leute ist die Wissenschaft ein Kapital in ihrer Hand; die Leidenschaft Ordynoffs dagegen war wie eine Waffe, die sich gegen ihn selbst richtete.”

“For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old.”

“[I]n every serious human idea that is conceived in someone’s head, there always remains something that cannot be conveyed to other people, even though whole volumes were written and your idea explained for thirty-five years; there will always remain something that is on no account willing to come out of your skull and will remain with you for ever; so that you will die without perhaps ever having conveyed to anyone the most important part of your idea.”

“...μετὰ καὶ τόδε τοῖσι γενέσθω.”

“The Biblical language was so deeply embedded in the great man's mind that it became his normal way of speaking.”

“Bezrazložan i besciljan nemir u sadašnjosti, a u budućnosti tek neprekidne žrtve kojima neće ništa postići - eto što ga čeka na ovome svijetu. I što vrijedi što će mu za osam godina biti tek trideset dvije godine i što će mu iznova započeti život? Čemu da živi? Na što da računa? Čemu da teži? Zar da živi samo zato da opstoji? Pa i prije je bio tisuću puta voljan žrtvovati život za ideju, za nadu, pa čak i za tlapnju. Goli život nikad mu nije bio dovoljan; uvijek je htio nešto više. Možda je samo zbog svojih želja držao tada sebe za čovjeka kome je dopušteno više nego drugima.”

“Nothing touches our lives but it is God Himself speaking. Do we discern His hand or only mere occurrence?”

“Suspicious we are, we men who walk the earth.”

“Above all, do not lie to yourself. A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he cannot discern any truth either in him, or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and muse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself. A man who lies to himself is often the first to take offense.”

“For the mystery of man's being is not only in living, but in what one lives for. Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if there is bread all around him.”

“Her insandan, içinde taşıdığı ruhun hemcinsleri arasında yürüyüp ilerlemesi, dünyanın dört bir yanını dolaşmasi beklenir; eğer o ruh hayatta yol almazsa bunu ölümden sonra yapmakla yükümlüdür. Dünyada dolanıp durmaya, vay anam vay, artık paylaşamayacağı ama dünyadan ayrılmamışken paylaşıp mutluluğa dönüştürebileceği şeyleri görmeye mahkum olur!”

“We stepped to the window. Off to one side there was thunder, and the splendid rain was trickling down upon the land; the most refreshing fragrance rose up to us from the rich abundance of the warm atmosphere. She stood leaning on her elbows, with her gaze searching the countryside; she looked up to heaven and at me; I saw her eyes fill with tears, and she laid her hand on mine, saying, "Klopstock!" I recalled at once the glorious ode she had in mind, and became immersed in the stream of emotions which she had poured over me by uttering this symbolic name. I could not bear it, I bent down over hand and kissed it amid tears of the utmost rapture. And looked into her eyes again - noble poet! Would that you had seen your apotheosis in that gaze, and would that your name, so often profaned, would never reach my ears from any other lips.”

“There is nothing higher, or stronger, or sounder, or more useful afterwards in life, than some good memory, especially a memory from childhood, from the parental home. You hear a lot said about your education, yet some such beautiful, sacred memory, preserved from childhood, is perhaps the best education. If a man stores up many such memories to take into life, then he is saved for his whole life.”

“Ah, o que eu sei, toda a gente o pode saber! Mas o meu coração só a mim pertence…”