Quotes

"The spiritual evolution of our species has only taken place in the last century or so: In the time of Matthias Corvinus, tournaments were still fashionable. Ariosto sang the story of Roland, a man of terrible strength, at the same time. The celebrations of carnal men are also carnal. The carnival, the great drinking parties. The most glorious thing is muscular strength. Poets are ragged, butchers are pompous. No one is interested in the author of the Shakespeare dramas: is it director Shakespeare himself, or someone else writing in his name?"

"The revival of Hungary began before Széchenyi. The language renewalists, though they were also tongue-lashers, were the oil for the lamp which Széchenyi then lit and carried around before the minds. Széchenyi was a sent soul, like Kossuth, Deák and the three writers Petőfi, Arany and Jókai. The caterpillar that moults suffers from a sleeping sickness. After the illness it is more beautiful, healthier, stronger, bigger. What a wonderful rebuilding of a (vile one to us) worm-body creature. But the laws, the rules, the requisites of reconstruction were already in him. All the patterns of the flower's life are similar. The man, the worm, the grass seed, the star-family of the sun: all have Intelligence behind them."

"The self-serving mirror of morality: sin."

"If doctors were wearing uniforms, I'd say, greet them as well. Doctors are the most useful workers in society. Especially appreciate those doctors who are spoken of with gratitude by the poor. With their hands God works."

"In the city man has at least two clothes and two faces. One: the one he wears in society. The other: the one he wears at home."

"The plan for the perfection of the human race is a divine plan which can be discerned in the separate blood and languages of the races. If there were one-language and one-nation in the world, the spiritual leaders would be one kind of flowers of that nation. German philosophers and Goethe could not have risen from an Italian bed, nor Italian painters and sculptors descended from Prussian mothers and fathers, etc."

"Be polite even to cats who think it's man's duty to always let them have the better seat and better milk. And even if you give them the only room in the rain, somehow don't expect them to give you at least an umbrella. Instead of grumbling, be happy. Think: - Life has given me an opportunity to try my patience. As much as I can remain calm, so much my wisdom has spread."

"The soul-denier. - For it is certain that the body, even if it has ceased to live, does not perish, it only changes, but the self-consciousness, the self?... Answer: - Well, if the body is so precious to the universe that not a molecule of it can perish, why should the self perish, the flame of the body, according to the theory of inheritance, which is ever refining through time? If nothing is lost, but only changes shape, why should this not also change shape? For the self is not earthly matter, so it cannot take shape, but only change its clothes. If we imagine an immortal captain of a ship, we understand that the ship may sink, but the captain always escapes and steers a new ship again. The soul is the master and governor of the body."

"The number of years on the tombstone of the card player is always a lie. He also lost years of his life playing cards."

"God does not need our prayers. We do. For me, it would be terrible for God and Jesus and Mary to demand prayer from man. They can't accept it from us because we don't know who they are. Our God, our Jesus, our Mary, to whom we pray, is not the real God, not the real Jesus, not the real Mary, but the creation of the imagination: the images within us."

"When a smart man speaks, he always speaks for others. A fool always talks to himself even when he is talking to others."

"If we imagine the path to perfection as a staircase, on one of the stairs (above the bottom step), it is written: - I say no evil of anyone. On the next step: - I don't even think."

"The women of folk theatre are in fancy dress. Their hair is ironed curly. They never work, they just fluff their skirts and kiss forever. Such peasant women do not exist in Hungary."

"In the December 1906 issue of Századok, a priest claims that the god of the Hungarians never existed. Before Christianity every nation had its own national god, why shouldn't the Hungarian have had one? The author of the article, of course, does not deal with this. For him, it is enough to demolish a beautiful tradition. That he does not put anything in its place is not his concern. These are the vandals of science today."

"In ordinary conversation, a man always talks about what excites his brain, or used to excite it. Hence it is that the man of average intelligence prefers to talk rather than to listen, the man of intellect is more eager to listen than to speak. Because the intelligent man does not find it necessary to state everything that excites his brain. He is buttoned up. He only appears openly and confidentially to his relatives."

"Why do animals have to suffer? Why are horses slaves? Why is the end of the rabbit a tragedy? Why must the bird in the hands of a child suffer strangulation? And the animals that fall into the hands of a Chinese chef, whose breasts are sliced open alive to have a heart squeezed? The human soul rebels at the sight and the hearing of these things. But even on this earth, human suffering often finds a comforting explanation, so we must also think of animal suffering as an explanation: The mystery of God. And, above all, let us not forget that to set God before man's own condemnatory thoughts, as before some tribunal of law, - oh, this is folly!"

"What remains of the sculptor's work is what the sculptor has carved - his carving. What remains of the painter's work is his painting. From the works of the writer: what in his writings is no longer writing, but thought moved from the paper to the heads and hearts."

"The faith according to the Catechism. In fact: to feel true, etc., what the Mother Church teaches. Because I can hold it even if I don't feel it to be true, but then I am lying. And if I hold to be true what I feel to be true, then I am honest. Is there no contradiction in this: 1. Faith is a gift from God. 2. He who does not believe will be damned. So if God does not give me a gift, I am damned: I suffer because I have no gift."

"Anyone who wants company is in spiritual need. A barrel that can no longer be filled with its own wine."

"Man is a god-beam in a clay pot. He can move the vessel's enclosure: he can walk with it, but only death can take it out, - if he does not break the enclosure himself. But it's wired tight, and if you break it, it hurts. See, pain is also a divine wisdom in the structure of the mysterious vessel."