Quotes

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Every time we encounter injustice or cruelty in life - a child is tortured, an animal is abused, a human being is humiliated or denied what is rightfully his by divine and human law - we are always haunted by the question: is it your right and duty to intervene, to intervene, to take on the ungrateful role of an unwelcome praetor in the turmoil of alien fates? Or go away, with a guilty conscience, but unharmed? Know that you have the right to interfere in the affairs of strangers and the world only so long as you, personally, without the interference of foreign men or authorities, can actually help where you see injustice, unfairness or cruelty. For he who, with justifiable indignation, passes on help to others, "calls" the attention of authority or philanthropists to what he has seen, is already making a "cause" out of human misery, is already taking a part between suffering and help, is already deceiving himself and the world. Be alone with human suffering and try to help to the best of your ability. If you can wipe the tears from a child's face, if you can relieve a sick horse, if you can give money that is yours, or clothes to a ragged man, or advice and action to help something, personally - then, only then, you have the right to intervene. But anyone who calls the police in such situations, or writes letters to the newspapers, or takes up collections for the needy, in short, makes a role out of the misery of others for themselves, is suspect. Your pain and misery are personal, and you can only help in person. Everything else is vanity.

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I wouldn't wish it on my enemy either.

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You have more sense than strength.

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You can't see the forest for the trees.

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Lost ax handle.

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Where there's smoke, there's fire.

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Small child - small problem, big child - big problem.

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It was needed/missed like a pond with a window/glass.

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He who lies also steals.

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The Danube could be blocked with him/her.

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He would also spend the treasure of Darius.

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People are usually offended if we are too polite to them. I'm talking about people in Europe and America. Only the Chinese can endure the unconditional, the unmitigated, the fatal politeness that has already permeated the whole fabric of their bodies and souls, one with life, even for the gut-washers and the princes. This courtesy, which is clear in the way of life of the people, is the supreme manifestation of human coexistence. But our politeness is entirely superficial. To the Frenchman, only his literature and his declaration of war are polite: his dining-room, his shop and his salon are not. It is not enough to say "pardon" when you step on someone's foot. You have to feel 'pardon' - and that is much harder. Our age is one of the most impolite ages of mankind. The executioner of the Middle Ages would kneel before the victim and apologise for having to cut off his neck: and Marie Antoinette would say to Sanson on the scaffold: 'Pardon'. But now neither the executioner nor the victim apologise to each other. This is sad. And if one is perfectly polite nowadays, one's contemporaries perceive this attitude as cold, callous indifference. Today, everyone demands a 'fake confession', and politeness is perceived as evasion and betrayal. But it is not: it is simply experience. There is no other solution. When everyone is digging in each other's guts, with passionate love or mad hatred: you remain polite.

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Whoever says a, should also say bé.

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He stirred up the standing water. He threw a stone into the standing water.

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A good woman is the crown of the house.

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Tell me who your friend is, I'll tell you who you are.

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Where you trust, you gain weight.

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Throwing up a wall peas.

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Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.

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Sometimes it pops, sometimes it knocks.