Famous quotes

Collection of the best phrases and famous quotes from the most prominent authors.

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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I believe that people, when they are intelligent and completely normal, should not pretend to be strange and odd, because it becomes absurd and contrived.

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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Falsehood and dissimulation are useful within social life. I have not possessed this condition, and I believe that not having it has harmed me more than anything else. Also, not having solemnity has slightly harmed me when dealing with both acquaintances and strangers.

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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The music is an art that is beyond the bounds of reason; the same can be said about whether it is beneath or above it.

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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The world, for us, is representation, as Schopenhauer said; it is not an absolute reality, but a reflection of essential ideas.

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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The people have so little imagination that they eagerly collect from each other these small adornments of conversation. They are like ragpickers or collectors of clichés.

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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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.

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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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.

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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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.

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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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...

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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

Pío Baroja

Pío Baroja

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