Quotes

"To those who believe that man grows like a mushroom and dies like a mushroom, the Bible is a mushroom. But he who already feels that he is a spirit, understands from the Bible that the book is the work of sent spirits. The teaching of heavenly sages in the language of earthly children. Why in the language of children? Because everything on earth changes, except the language of children. The child-language is always capable, always fabulous. The picture has the power to explain, the tale is the indestructible frame of all wisdom. And it speaks to all kinds of minds."

"All the hot water cools when it is removed from the fire. This is what happens to marriage, which boils on fleshly flames."

"Nothing is harder than being human among people."

"The soul in the brain = the glass lens in the camera box. Eye = photographic plate. The plate can be used for anything the lens can record."

"- Quo vadis? asked Peter. Jesus replied: - What makes you speak to me in a language I do not understand?"

"You cannot talk to an actor for five minutes without saying the word: Role."

"The suffering poor animal looks at us with a human face."

"Incorrect and of a low standard is also a purely carnal life. Since the purpose of our life should be only the care and multiplication of the flesh, this may be the conception of life in Kőbánya ("Stone Quarry"), but not even there in people's homes. If machines had minds, they would know at once that they were made not only to move and digest oil. Shall man be comforted in knowing that his existence is inferior to mechanical ends? In vain: there are such meat-machines. Indeed, they know no other purpose than digestion, breeding, and the gathering of the substances which sustain them. Such people are then affected by a family bereavement as if they had been struck on the forehead with a fist. But of course: the life of the flesh was considered the life of man, and if the flesh perishes, so does our life. But then a mysterious voice within the heart spoke: - It cannot be, it cannot be that man should perish thus! The agonized man then lifts up his head and cries out: - A drop of water! Lazarus, a drop of water! But in vain would Lazarus give a drop of water, he would only increase the thirst. You can't make a tree grow, blossom, and fruit in five minutes. Nor can spiritual self-knowledge, trust in God, be woven into reason all at once. But how can there be faith and reassurance for one who has only looked at the sky when he has contemplated the position of the clouds. Was the only thing he cared if his hair was right on his face, when he looked in the mirror? who seeks only refreshment in nature: who knows the four Jacks from card game but not the four Evangelists, and who has never sought nor studied the great thinkers of mankind, but will not hesitate to call them names. You, my sons, do not live such a carnal life, but a spiritual one. All for the soul! For the flesh, only that it may not be a nuisance."

"He who turns his mind towards God, senses, as a blind man feels the light of the sun."

"An ugly thought is like an ugly child: no one looks at it with joy. Ugly ideas are the rubbish heap of man's spiritual household. Why revolve it?"

"It probably doesn't need to be said that when we tell a story that is intended to amuse, the brush of imagination is free to colour. But if the story is about a real man, and casts a shadow over him, it would be written on the tablets of conscience to do so. We shall leave man-eating to the savages."

"The locomotive has steam, the man has will. In childhood, it manifests itself day after day and year after year in the form of a one-way interest and willingness. The play of the kitten and the play of the toddler is the will for a later life career."

"The human body is a mud sculpture with two bellows, constantly animating itself. It is impossible not to recognize that it is a dwelling: a house of the soul. If the two blowers disappear, the rivers, streams, and streams of the human body freeze. Then the soul moves out of it and seeks another house."

"In the story of Suzanne, the old goats are no meaner than the painters who paint Suzanne as the elders would have wanted her to be."

"The flower is developed by sunlight, the human soul by love. He whose neck has never been clasped by the hand of a child, who has never heard a child's lips say, "Father," who has never trembled in the shadow of death for a child, who has never bowed his soul to God in thanksgiving for the survival of a child, such a man has received a fragment of the world of feeling. His life on earth, however luxurious the train he rode, - he rode in a tunnel."

"There is no equal rank in nature. One soul is superior to another. Two strangers meet: as soon as they have exchanged words, they feel which is above. In times of danger, the weaker will follow the other, obey. This is also the secret of education. A paragraph of the universal law: the rule of the more perfect soul over the less perfect, so that it may be guided to the perfect path."

"In animals, the reason given for caring for offspring is that breastfeeding is a pleasurable experience for the animal. So it's no wonder! But it is perhaps interesting that some beetles (spiders, butterflies, flies) never see their babies and make artistic shelters to protect them from the cold of winter, to save them for the coming year. It may be a pleasant feeling, but perhaps there is something to admire in its work. If nothing else, it is that it does a purposeful work, without knowing the purpose itself, but it is a work that it is compelled to do."

"There is no sin punished by God as much as that committed by man against his own heart. He who sells his heart."

"For a Memory Book. The past is not yours, only the shadow that follows it. The future is not yours, only its ray that casts itself before you. The clock is yours, only the clock you live in. Do not hurry out of it, if it is full of sunny, flowery peace: all the business of the world is not equal to a happy hour of the heart."

"Who is stronger? The one who puts all his muscles and strength into the hustle and bustle of life, and fights and struggles with fire and sweat? Or he who shrugs at all - at the world and its strugglers?"