Anton > Anton's Quotes

“I'm sorry, but I don't want to be an emperor. That's not my business. I don't want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible; Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. We don't want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men's souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical; our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost. The airplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men; cries out for universal brotherhood; for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people. To those who can hear me, I say, do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. Soldiers! Don't give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you; who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don't give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines, you are not cattle, you are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate! Only the unloved hate; the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don't fight for slavery! Fight for liberty! In the seventeenth chapter of St. Luke, it is written that the kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people, have the power, the power to create machines, the power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure. Then in the name of democracy, let us use that power. Let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise. Let us fight to free the world! To do away with national barriers! To do away with greed, with hate and intolerance! Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men's happiness. Soldiers, in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”
― Charlie Chaplin

“A man can live and be healthy without killing animals for food; therefore, if he eats meat, he participates in taking animal life merely for the sake of his appetite. And to act so is immoral.”
― Leo Tolstoy

“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

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
― Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“Without music, life would be a mistake.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

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

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Life is a beautiful magnificent thing, even to a jellyfish.”
― Charles Chaplin

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

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

“Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment

“Sarcasm: the last refuge of modest and chaste-souled people when the PRIVACY of their soul is coarsely and intrusively invaded.”
― Dostoyevsky Fyodor

“I swear, gentlemen, that to be too conscious is an illness - a real thorough-going illness.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead

“You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down”
― Charlie Chaplin

“I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying.”
― Charlie Chaplin

“Nothing is permanent in this wicked world, not even our troubles.”
― Charlie Chaplin

“A man's true character comes out when he's drunk.”
― Charlie Chaplin

“Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.”
― Oscar Wilde

“Unlimited power in the hands of limited people always leads to cruelty.”
― David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas

“We think too much and feel too little.”
― Charlie Chaplin

“You'll find that life is still worthwhile, if you just smile.”
― Charlie Chaplin

“Failure is unimportant. It takes courage to make a fool of yourself”
― Charlie Chaplin

“That's the trouble with the world. We all despise ourselves.”
― Charlie Chaplin

“If you look for perfection, you'll never be content.”
― Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
― Leo Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata

“Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking...”
― Leo Tolstoy

“Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.”
― Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

“I sit on a man's back choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am sorry for him and wish to lighten his load by all means possible… except by getting off his back.”
― Leo Tolstoy, What Then Must We Do?

“If I am worth anything later, I am worth something now. For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.”
― Vincent van Gogh

“It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.”
― Vincent Van Gogh