Quotes by John Galsworthy

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The first condition of victory is sacrifice.

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Every man wants to be righteous, but not everyone succeeds.

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Titles double the size of events.

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Idealism increases in direct proportion to the distance to the given problem.

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Love that fears obstacles is not love.

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There are no two people who share all their thoughts with each other without reserve, except for rare moments of closeness... Everyone around thinks too much about saving appearances.

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Not a day must pass without each of us repeating to ourselves: "For the sake of all that is holy within us we must shun war!"

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Don't lose your sense of humor. Humor is to man what smell is to a rose.

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Loneliness is not the worst thing; the worst is to remain impassive.

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One-sided self-sacrifice is a thin foundation for a life together because it offends the other person.

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A hazard is greater the less likely it is.

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Only he who cares about the great human and social problems should write.

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Psychology is the expression in words of what cannot be expressed with their help.

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Would human life - and it is so fragile - be preserved in spite of all our troubles and hardships, if it were not worth living?

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Justice is a machine that, after being given an initial start, runs on its own.

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If peace is not established among the great so-called civilized nations, we may without exaggeration suppose that they will all share the same fate, and that every country participating in the war will disappear forever...

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Kindness is a quality whose excess does no harm.

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If you don't think about the future, you won't have it.

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Life is not a galloping horse that goes straight, without detours, from start to finish.

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If you entrust your thoughts to (...) a woman (...), you never know what will come out of it.

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There is nothing in the world as terrible as an embarrassing scene.

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How tiny man is, and how much there is of him! And then - what will they all become?!

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The dog's silence makes it more valuable than anything else. In his company, one finds peace of mind, where words lose all their meaning!

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He looked at the woman, who was just cowering, like a shot, dying bird - a bird whose beating heart has lost its life, its broken gaze stares at your face, the one who sent the bullet into its body, and its languid, gentle, fading gaze bids farewell to all that is beautiful on earth, from the sun, from the air and from his partner.

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Love is not a greenhouse plant, but a wild flower brought to life by a rainy night and an hour of sunlight; it sprouts from a wild seed and is driven along the road by a wild wind. This wild flower, if it happens to bloom inside the fence of our garden, is called a plant, if outside it, a weed, but whether it is a plant or a weed, its smell and color are always wild.

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There is no doubt that men are incapable of mastering their inventions; the most that is required of them is to develop their adaptability to the new conditions that they themselves create.

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Be kind and always persevere, there is no comfort in anything else!

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In our world, we only get tenderness if we pay for it. Maybe it's not like that in the other world - who knows?

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In architecture, as in life, there is no self-respect without regularity.

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Giving up is easier than acknowledging that someone else is giving up on us, but it's even easier than being the reason for a loved one's resignation.

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Oh, why can't happiness be invested in interest-bearing municipal loans, gilded at the edges, and insured against falling prices?!

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Admiration of beauty and the desire to possess it are not love. (...) All that is deep in man would be suffocated; bodies would unite, but souls would fight!

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- Human nature does not change. - I admit that, sir, but the forms of thinking are changed by time. The pursuit of self-interest is a form of thinking that is dying out. - (...) Minding one's own business is not a way of thinking (...), but an instinct!

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The importance of human nature in business is constantly underestimated, thereby depriving people of a great deal of pleasure and profit. Of course, you have to be honest and open, but this is not difficult for someone who is anyway. The more humane and generous we are, the better the opportunities in business.

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People are going the wrong way when they offer less for something than they can afford, they should offer more and then lower their offer.

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Every emotion is worth the sacrifices we are willing to make for it.

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It was never a good idea to face a problem halfway. You young people are always in a hurry. It's easy to do something, but it's hard not to do it.

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People's moods are like the colors of the clouds or mother-of-pearl at sunset - intertwined like the threads of an embroidery - more uncertain than the April sun and yet with a certain rhythm that never fails and that no one can foresee.

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How terrible it is to live when a person no longer means anything to anyone, he is just "passing the time" because he is forced to, and then he dies. But it is even more horrible to "spend time" when one is young and strong, when life and love could be one's own.

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There are moments when one feels that reality does not exist.

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If you don't eat, what comfort does it take from the fact that no one else is eating?!

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Nowadays, only those who do not think at all are not free thinkers!

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Just don't give in to your grief! (...) We are not masters of life, but we can fight it. Try to get a good picture for everything.

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The statements of the insurance companies and the verdicts of the judges convince me every day that our earthly paradise is still a rich hunting ground, where the two savages, Beauty and Passion, frequently invade and destroy everything that we believe to be certain and final right before our noses.

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Let the dead past bury its dead. That's what the saying goes, but it would only be really good if the past really died. One of the tragicomic blessings that every new age denies is that the past lives steadfastly on, no matter how often the new age appears to claim the never-before.

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Where one of the two partners lacks sexual attraction completely, perfectly and definitively, no amount of pity, common sense, duty or anything else - nothing can overcome the tension inherent in human nature.

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The age that doesn't know what it wants, but wants that nothing furiously, can only make you smile, even if it's a sad smile.

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To reproduce all the forms, tastes, and colors of an era - no novelist can do that, even less so the humble author of these lines: but the attempt to capture at least a little of its spirit was undoubtedly lurking in the background of his thoughts when he took up his pen.

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Only those who are strong enough to keep quiet about themselves are also strong enough to be sure of themselves!

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Lyre can only be created if a person can fly into the air at every moment.

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Change is only death's transition between two forms of life, and destruction is necessary to make room for even newer property in its wake.

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The waves of change broke in, but the promise of a new life will only become a reality in its wake once the destructive price has left.

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Incarnate Beauty also has a spiritual core, and this can only be grasped by devotion that is ready to forget itself.

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So this is the final ending - all the excitement, heat, tension, madness and longing of his life, his only defeat, disappear now by not seeing this woman anymore - and even such a memory has its own peculiarly painful value.

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If you treat a prisoner like a criminal, he will eventually become one.