Karol Nguyễn > Karol's Quotes

“Full freedom will come only when it makes no difference whether to live or not to live. That’s the goal for everyone.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Demons

“I say let the world go to hell, but I should always have my tea.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground

“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Everything you can imagine is real.”
― Pablo Picasso

“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.”
― Albert Einstein

“There is a distinct difference between "suspense" and "surprise," and yet many pictures continually confuse the two. I'll explain what I mean.

We are now having a very innocent little chat. Let's suppose that there is a bomb underneath this table between us. Nothing happens, and then all of a sudden, "Boom!" There is an explosion. The public is surprised, but prior to this surprise, it has seen an absolutely ordinary scene, of no special consequence. Now, let us take a suspense situation. The bomb is underneath the table and the public knows it, probably because they have seen the anarchist place it there. The public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there is a clock in the decor. The public can see that it is a quarter to one. In these conditions, the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene. The audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen: "You shouldn't be talking about such trivial matters. There is a bomb beneath you and it is about to explode!"

In the first case we have given the public fifteen seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion. In the second we have provided them with fifteen minutes of suspense. The conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed. Except when the surprise is a twist, that is, when the unexpected ending is, in itself, the highlight of the story.”
― Alfred Hitchcock

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“To go wrong in one's own way is better than to go right in someone else's.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

“The soul is healed by being with children.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“People speak sometimes about the "bestial" cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

“Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering...”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“I can see the sun, but even if I cannot see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there - that is living.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“Life is too short to learn German”
― Oscar Wilde

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles. We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”
― Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis

“But I see nothing miraculous about it. Nothing makes one as healthy as happiness, and there is no greater happiness than making someone else happy.”
― Stefan Zweig, Letter from an Unknown Woman and Other Stories

“Dù sao thời gian cũng có một uy lực rất lớn và tuổi tác đã làm lắng dịu một cách kỳ lạ tất cả mọi tình cảm. Người ta cảm thấy gần với cái chết hơn, bóng của nó làm đường đi tối lại, mọi việc có vẻ không còn tươi sáng nữa, chúng không tác động bao nhiêu đến những nơi thầm kín của con người như trước kia và chúng cũng mất đi nhiều uy lực hiểm nghèo.”
― Stefan Zweig, Letter from an Unknown Woman and Other Stories

“Alors, dans l'obscurité j'ai pleuré de bonheur.”
― Stefan Zweig, Letter from an Unknown Woman and Other Stories

“Nothing in this world is harder than speaking the truth, nothing easier than flattery.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Right or wrong, it's very pleasant to break something from time to time.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“There is no other way to guard yourself against flattery than by making men understand that telling you the truth will not offend you.”
― Machiavelli Niccolo, The Prince

“Never attempt to win by force what can be won by deception.”
― Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince

“Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct with the times.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli

“There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, and the third is useless..”
― Niccolò Machiavelli

“Do you hate people?”

“I don't hate them...I just feel better when they're not around.”
― Charles Bukowski, Barfly