Pío Baroja Quotes

If you ever discover any law, be prudent and do not try to apply it. You have discovered the law... that is enough. Because if this law is physical and you try to apply it to a machine, you will stumble upon brute matter; and if it is a social law, you will stumble upon the brutality of men.

Truly, I don't know if rightfully or not, I am not amazed by ingenuity, because it is evident that there are many ingenious men in the world. Nor am I astonished by people with memory, no matter how great and wondrous it may be, or by calculators; what amazes me the most is kindness, and I say this without the slightest hint of hypocrisy.

A lot of people think, or at least feel, that anyone who does not share their habits and enthusiasms is an enemy. In matters of essential ideas, I find intransigence logical.

The clarity in science is necessary; but in literature, it is not. To see clearly is philosophy. To see clearly in the mystery is literature. That's what Shakespeare, Cervantes, Dickens, Dostoevsky did...

The law is inexorable, like dogs: it only barks at those who are poorly dressed.

The death is someone who withdraws from himself and returns to us. There are no more dead than those carried by the living.

If you want to do something in life, don't believe in the word impossible. Nothing is impossible for a strong will.

So in life, many times, one does not know if it is oneself pushing the events or if it is the events that drag one along.

The child laughs out of joy; it is the first step. Humor laughs with sadness; it is the final step. Dawn and twilight.