Jerome Klapka Jerome citáty

page 3

„Nečinnosť, rovnako ako bozky, na to, aby bola sladká, musí byť ukradnutá.“

„Skutočné sebavedomie nerobí človeka uvážlivým. Naopak, pôsobí na to, že sa človek stáva vnímavým, dobrosrdečným a prostým. Nepotrebuje pretvárku. Je spokojný so svojou pravou povahou. A jeho pýcha korení príliš hlboko, než aby sa prejavila aj navonok. Nedbajúc na chválu či hanu, môže si dopriať byť pravdivým.“

„Je dobre, že nemôžeme nazrieť do budúcnosti. Je málo štrnásťročných chlapcov, ktorí by sa za seba nehanbili, keby sa videli v štyridsiatke.“

„Práca ma fascinuje! Celé hodiny sa vydržím pozerať, ako niekto pracuje.“

„Všetko na tomto svete dostávame príliš neskoro.“

„Každým okamihom sa nám začína nový život. Radostne mu poďme v ústrety. Kráčajme s pevným odhodlaním, či chceme, alebo nie, a radšej oči upierajme vpred, než by sme nimi mali sledovať minulosť.“

„V posledných dejstvách opery života je veľmi málo veľkolepých scén.“

„Vyhoď príťaž, človeče! Pozeraj, či je tvoj čln života ľahký, vybavený len tým, čo potrebuješ.“

„Buďme márnomyseľní, nie však na svoje nohavice alebo vlasy, ale na svoje srdce, na svoje ruky, na pravdu, čistotu, ušľachtilosť.“

„Najlepšia politika je hovoriť vždy pravdu - pokiaľ, pravdaže, nie ste výnimočne dobrý luhár.“

„Banka je miesto, kde ti požičajú dáždnik, keď svieti slnko, vezmú ti ho len čo začne pršať.“

„Čisté svedomie robí človeka šťastným a spokojným, ale plný žalúdok to dokáže rovnako tak dobre, a to lacnejšie a jednoduchšie.“

„Domýšľavosť je najľahšie brnenie, aké môže človek nosiť.“

„Keby každé dievča v dvadsiatich počulo seba, ako bude hovoriť v štyridsiatich, potom by vôbec nebolo svadieb.“

„Láska je ako osýpky, všetci ju musíme prekonať. Ako osýpky nás tiež postihne iba raz. Nemusíme sa preto obávať, že ju dostaneme druhýkrát.“

„Leňošenie dôkladne vychutná iba ten, kto má veľa práce.“

„Márnomyseľnosť je jedným z tých prírodných čŕt, ktoré svedčia o príbuznosti všetkých ľudí.“

„My, muži, potrebujeme k svojmu blahu ženy a ženy zase krásne šaty.“

„Pijeme niekomu na zdravie - a vlastné si kazíme.“

„Záhaľku nemôžeme poriadne vychutnať, ak nemáme veľa práce.“

„Mnohým trampotám by sa zabránilo, keby tí, čo ťahajú, mali stále na pamäti, že ťahajú niekoho, a často sa obzerajú, aby videli, ako sa darí tomu, čo sa vezie.“

„Príležitosti idú okolo, zatiaľ čo sedíme a ľutujeme stratené možnosti.“

“A man rarely carries his shyness past the hobbledehoy period. Even if his own inward strength does not throw it off, the rubbings of the world generally smooth it down.”

“And fighting the battle of life is fighting against fearful odds, too. There are giants and dragons in this nineteenth century, and the golden casket that they guard is not so easy to win as it appears in the story-books.”

“All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women are terribly vain. So are men — more so, if possible.”

“A woman never thoroughly cares for her lover until he has ceased to care for her; and it is not until you have snapped your fingers in Fortune's face and turned on your heel that she begins to smile upon you.”

“Too much of anything is a mistake, as the man said when his wife presented him with four new healthy children in one day. We should practice moderation in all matters.”

“There are two kinds of clocks. There is the clock that is always wrong, and that knows it is wrong, and glories in it; and there is the clock that is always right — except when you rely upon it, and then it is more wrong than you would think a clock could be in a civilized country.”

“There are the goods; if you want them, you can have them. If you do not want them, they would almost rather that you did not come and talk about them.”

“I can understand the ignorant masses loving to soak themselves in drink—oh, yes, it's very shocking that they should, of course—very shocking to us who live in cozy homes, with all the graces and pleasures of life around us, that the dwellers in damp cellars and windy attics should creep from their dens of misery into the warmth and glare of the public-house bar, and seek to float for a brief space away from their dull world upon a Lethe stream of gin. But think, before you hold up your hands in horror at their ill-living, what "life" for these wretched creatures really means. Picture the squalid misery of their brutish existence, dragged on from year to year in the narrow, noisome room where, huddled like vermin in sewers, they welter, and sicken, and sleep; where dirt-grimed children scream and fight and sluttish, shrill-voiced women cuff, and curse, and nag; where the street outside teems with roaring filth and the house around is a bedlam of riot and stench. Think what a sapless stick this fair flower of life must be to them, devoid of mind and soul. The horse in his stall scents the sweet hay and munches the ripe corn contentedly. The watch-dog in his kennel blinks at the grateful sun, dreams of a glorious chase over the dewy fields, and wakes with a yelp of gladness to greet a caressing hand. But the clod-like life of these human logs never knows one ray of light. From the hour when they crawl from their comfortless bed to the hour when they lounge back into it again they never live one moment of real life. Recreation, amusement, companionship, they know not the meaning of. Joy, sorrow, laughter, tears, love, friendship, longing, despair, are idle words to them. From the day when their baby eyes first look out upon their sordid world to the day when, with an oath, they close them forever and their bones are shoveled out of sight, they never warm to one touch of human sympathy, never thrill to a single thought, never start to a single hope. In the name of the God of mercy; let them pour the maddening liquor down their throats and feel for one brief moment that they live!”

“It is very strange, this domination of our intellect by our digestive organs. We cannot work, we cannot think, unless our stomach wills so. It dictates to us our emotions, our passions.”

“Love is too pure a light to burn long among the noisome gases that we breathe, but before it is choked out we may use it as a torch to ignite the cozy fire of affection.”

“If you would taste love, drink of the pure stream that youth pours out at your feet. Do not wait till it has become a muddy river before you stoop to catch its waves.”

“Nothing—so it seems to me…is more beautiful than the love that has weathered the storms of life. … The love of the young for the young, that is the beginning of life. But the love of the old for the old, that is the beginning of—of things longer.”

“I want a house that has got over all its troubles; I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house.”

“What between tipping the man who had brought us home, and paying for the broken sculls, and for having been out four hours and a half, it cost us a pretty considerable number of weeks’ pocket-money, that sail. But we learned experience, and they say that is always cheap at any price.”

“Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before. I have not a word to say against contented people so long as they keep quiet.”

“I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed.”

“It always is wretched weather according to us. The weather is like the government — always in the wrong. In summer-time we say it is stifling; in winter that it is killing; in spring and autumn we find fault with it for being neither one thing nor the other and wish it would make up its mind…We shall never be content until each man makes his own weather and keeps it to himself.”

“Tears are as sweet as laughter to some natures.”

“Conceit is the finest armor that a man can wear. Upon its smooth, impenetrable surface the puny dagger-thrusts of spite and envy glance harmlessly aside. Without that breast-plate the sword of talent cannot force its way through the battle of life, for blows have to be borne as well as dealt.”

“There have been a good many funny things said and written about hardupishness, but the reality is not funny, for all that. It is not funny to have to haggle over pennies. It isn't funny to be thought mean and stingy. It isn't funny to be shabby and to be ashamed of your address. No, there is nothing at all funny in poverty — to the poor.”

“No, there is nothing at all funny in poverty—to the poor. It is hell upon earth to a sensitive man; and many a brave gentleman who would have faced the labors of Hercules has had his heart broken by its petty miseries.”

“They say — people who ought to be ashamed of themselves do — that the consciousness of being well dressed imparts a blissfulness to the human heart that religion is powerless to bestow. I am afraid these cynical persons are sometimes correct.”

“But if we look a little deeper we shall find there is a pathetic, one might almost say a tragic, side to the picture. A shy man means a lonely man—a man cut off from all companionship, all sociability. He moves about the world, but does not mix with it. Between him and his fellow-men there runs ever an impassable barrier—a strong, invisible wall that, trying in vain to scale, he but bruises himself against. He sees the pleasant faces and hears the pleasant voices on the other side, but he cannot stretch his hand across to grasp another hand. He stands watching the merry groups, and he longs to speak and to claim kindred with them. But they pass him by, chatting gayly to one another, and he cannot stay them. He tries to reach them, but his prison walls move with him and hem him in on every side. In the busy street, in the crowded room, in the grind of work, in the whirl of pleasure, amid the many or amid the few—wherever men congregate together, wherever the music of human speech is heard and human thought is flashed from human eyes, there, shunned and solitary, the shy man, like a leper, stands apart. His soul is full of love and longing, but the world knows it not. The iron mask of shyness is riveted before his face, and the man beneath is never seen. Genial words and hearty greetings are ever rising to his lips, but they die away in unheard whispers behind the steel clamps. His heart aches for the weary brother, but his sympathy is dumb. Contempt and indignation against wrong choke up his throat, and finding no safety-valve whence in passionate utterance they may burst forth, they only turn in again and harm him. All the hate and scorn and love of a deep nature such as the shy man is ever cursed by fester and corrupt within, instead of spending themselves abroad, and sour him into a misanthrope and cynic.”

“Contented, unambitious people are all very well in their way. They form a neat, useful background for great portraits to be painted against, and they make a respectable, if not particularly intelligent, audience for the active spirits of the age to play before.”

“But by that time you do not much care whether she smiles or frowns. Why could she not have smiled when her smiles would have filled you with ecstasy? Everything comes too late in this world.”

“How you would watch her, spaniel-like, to anticipate her slightest wish! How proud you were to do her bidding! How delightful it was to be ordered about by her! To devote your whole life to her and to never think of yourself seemed such a simple thing. You would go without a holiday to lay a humble offering at her shrine, and felt more than repaid if she only deigned to accept it.”