Theodore Dreiser citáty
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Theodore Dreiser
Dátum narodenia: 27. august 1871
Dátum úmrtia: 28. december 1945
Ďalšie mená: تئودور درایزر
Theodore Herman Albert Dreiser [Drajzr] bol americký prozaik, novinár a dramatik. Patrí medzi predstaviteľov naturalizmu. Wikipedia
Foto: Carl Van Vechten / Public domain
Citáty Theodore Dreiser
„Človek sa môže cítiť šťastný s každou ženou, ak ju len obdivuje.“
Prisudzované výroky
„Among the forces which sweep and play throughout the universe, untutored man is but a wisp in the wind. Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason.“
— Theodore Dreiser, kniha Sister Carrie
Zdroj: Sister Carrie (1900), Ch. 8 : Intimations By Winter: An Ambassador Summoned
Kontext: Among the forces which sweep and play throughout the universe, untutored man is but a wisp in the wind. Our civilization is still in a middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by reason. On the tiger no responsibility rests. We see him aligned by nature with the forces of life — he is born into their keeping and without thought he is protected. We see man far removed from the lairs of the jungles, his innate instincts dulled by too near an approach to free-will, his free-will not sufficiently developed to replace his instincts and afford him perfect guidance. He is becoming too wise to hearken always to instincts and desires; he is still too weak to always prevail against them. As a beast, the forces of life aligned him with them; as a man, he has not yet wholly learned to align himself with the forces. In this intermediate stage he wavers — neither drawn in harmony with nature by his instincts nor yet wisely putting himself into harmony by his own free-will. He is even as a wisp in the wind, moved by every breath of passion, acting now by his will and now by his instincts, erring with one, only to retrieve by the other, falling by one, only to rise by the other — a creature of incalculable variability. We have the consolation of knowing that evolution is ever in action, that the ideal is a light that cannot fail. He will not forever balance thus between good and evil. When this jangle of free-will and instinct shall have been adjusted, when perfect understanding has given the former the power to replace the latter entirely, man will no longer vary. The needle of understanding will yet point steadfast and unwavering to the distant pole of truth.
„Words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.“
— Theodore Dreiser, kniha Sister Carrie
Varianta: How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.
Zdroj: Sister Carrie
„How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean.“
— Theodore Dreiser, kniha Sister Carrie
Zdroj: Sister Carrie
„Art is the stored honey of the human soul, gathered on wings of misery and travail.“
"Life, Art and America", in The Seven Arts (February 1917)
„The most futile thing in this world is any attempt, perhaps, at exact definition of character. All individuals are a bundle of contradictions—none more so than the most capable.“
— Theodore Dreiser, kniha The Financier
Zdroj: The Financier (1912), Ch. XIII
„The conventional mind is at best a petty piece of machinery. It is oyster-like in its functioning, or, perhaps better, clam-like. It has its little siphon of thought-processes forced up or down into the mighty ocean of fact and circumstance; but it uses so little, pumps so faintly, that the immediate contiguity of the vast mass is not disturbed. Nothing of the subtlety of life is perceived. No least inkling of its storms or terrors is ever discovered except through accident.“
— Theodore Dreiser, kniha The Financier
Zdroj: The Financier (1912), Ch. XXX
„Few people have the sense of financial individuality strongly developed. They do not know what it means to be a controller of wealth, to have that which releases the sources of social action—its medium of exchange. They want money, but not for money's sake. They want it for what it will buy in the way of simple comforts, whereas the financier wants it for what it will control—for what it will represent in the way of dignity, force, power.“
— Theodore Dreiser, kniha The Financier
Zdroj: The Financier (1912), Ch. XXV
„Oh, the moon is fair tonight along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the breath of new-mown hay;
Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.“
On the Banks of the Wabash (1896), chorus; this song as a whole was written by Dreiser's brother Paul (known as Paul Dresser); but Dreiser stated that "I wrote the first verse and chorus", in A Hoosier Holiday (1916) Ch. XLIII: "The Mystery of Coincidence".
