Richard Francis Burton citáty

strana 3

„Dvakrát promysli to, co chceš říci - a zjistíš, že tvá žena mezitím dvakrát změnila téma.“

„Největší ambicí otroka není svoboda, ale touha mít svého vlastního otroka.“

„Jezme, pijme, veselme se, protože zítra možná budeme muset pracovat.“

„Když jsem musel na cestách předstírat opilost, musel jsem být střízlivý, protože když jsem opilý, nevím, jak se opilci chovají.“

„Je-li žena v neprávu, ne vždy je tím vinen muž.“

„S hrdostí mohu prohlásit, že jsem porušil všechna přikázání Desatera.“

„Čím déle studuji náboženství, tím více jsem přesvědčen, že člověk ve skutečnosti vždy uctíval jen sám sebe.“

“"Faith mountains move" I hear: I see the practice of the world unheed
The foolish vaunt, the blatant boast that serves our vanity to feed. "Faith stands unmoved"; and why? Because man's silly fancies still remain,
And will remain till wiser man the day-dreams of his youth disdain.”

“"Th' immortal mind of mortal man!" we hear yon loud-lunged Zealot cry;
Whose mind but means his sum of thought, an essence of atomic "I." Thought is the work of brain and nerve, in small-skulled idiot poor and mean;
In sickness sick, in sleep asleep, and dead when Death lets drop the scene.”

“Cease, Man, to mourn, to weep, to wail; enjoy thy shining hour of sun;
We dance along Death's icy brink, but is the dance less full of fun?”

“The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself.”

“Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.”

“What call ye them or Goods or Ills, ill-goods, good-ills, a loss, a gain,
When realms arise and falls a roof; a world is won, a man is slain?”

“As palace mirror'd in the stream, as vapour mingled with the skies,
So weaves the brain of mortal man the tangled web of Truth and Lies.”

“So much to learn!
Old Nature's ways
Of glee and gloom with rapt amaze
To study, probe, and paint – brown earth,
Salt sea, blue heavens, their tilth and dearth,
Birds, grasses, trees – the natural things
That throb or grope or poise on wings.”

“Man worships self: his God is Man; the struggling of the mortal mind
To form its model as 'twould be, the perfect of itself to find.”

“"Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight; to poorest passion he was born;
"Who drains the score must e'er expect to rue the headache of the morn."
Safely he jogs along the way which "Golden Mean" the sages call;
Who scales the brow of frowning Alp must face full many a slip and fall.”

“"Reason and Instinct!" How we love to play with words that please our pride;
Our noble race's mean descent by false forged titles seek to hide! For "gift divine" I bid you read the better work of higher brain,
From Instinct diff'ering in degree as golden mine from leaden vein.”

“Ah! where shall weary man take sanctuary,
where live his little span of life secure?
and 'scape of Heav'n serene th' indignant storms
that launch their thunders at us earthen worms?”

“A man that hoards up riches and enjoys them not, is like an ass that carries gold and eats thistles.”

“Fools rush where Angels fear to tread!”

“Reason and Instinct!”

“Who drinks one bowl hath scant delight; to poorest passion he was born;
"Who drains the score must e'er expect to rue the headache of the morn.”

“Starting in a hollowed log of wood — some thousand miles up a river, with an infinitesimal prospect of returning! I ask myself 'Why?”