The Last Four Things Quotes

“...the heart of a child can take forty-nine blows before it’s damaged for ever and what’s done can never be undone.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Hypocrites,’ replied Cale, ‘I’ve come across a lot of them recently. I mean by that I understand now how many of them there are.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Do you have any idea how mad you sound?’
‘Indeed I do. I have in moments of doubt considered the question of my sanity.’ (...)
‘And?’
‘Then I consider what a piece of work is man. How defective in reason, how mean his facilities, how ugly in form and movement, in action how like a devil, in apprehension how like a cow. The beauty of the world? The paragon of animals? To me the quintessence of dust.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“The heart of a man is a small thing but it desires great matters. It is not big enough for a dog’s dinner but the whole world is not big enough for it. Man spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound; from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child.(...)And who will exterminate him who exterminates all others?”
― paul hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Even for the very clever it can be like breaking bones to stand back from something that’s been in front of you all your life.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Many are called, few are chosen.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“We are all cynics now, I suppose, and even a mewling infant knows that to save a life is to make an eternal enemy.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“It's pointless to blame someone for being themselves and looking to their own interests.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Sometimes, war being the unjust and drastic creature it is, those in whom he invested hopes took an arrow in the chest, the useless, by chance, thrived to irritate him another day.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Whatever discoveries have been made in the land of self-delusion, many undiscovered regions remain to be explored.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“In such a beast as this..." (he means the army)"...it was the collective power that went, collapsing like a long-exhausted animal, at once falling under its own weight as much as that of its enemy. It was a collective death and not a matter of bravery or even strength, and once it was down it was finished as a battle.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“The battle had been as hideous as you might expect between one side who were simply not afraid to die and another who regarded death as merely a door to the eternal life.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“That’s why it’s much better not to have friends if you have the strength of character to do without them. In the end friends always turn into a nuisance of one kind or another. But if you must have them let them alone and accept that you must allow everyone the right to exist in accordance with the character he has, whatever it turns out to be.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“The search for knowledge and the discovery of a great weapon are virtually one and the same. War is the father of everything.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Bůh není nějaký kriminálník, který podvádí v kartách. Chce, abychom se jeho zákony řídili svobodně, z vlastní vůle. Ani Bůh nedokáže nakreslit kulatý čtverec. Bůh je osamělý - chce, aby si lidé poslušnost sami zvolili, a ne aby k ní byli přinuceni strachem.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“It is not against reason, said the Englishman, to prefer the destruction of the world to a scratch on your finger – how much easier to understand the same price for the gash in your soul.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Lidské srdce je malé, touží ale po velkých věcech. Nestačí ani zasytit psa, ale celý svět pro něj není dost velký.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Nemá smysl zlobit se na někoho za to, že je sám sebou a stará se o vlastní zájmy.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“Nikdy nepřerušuj nepřítele, když se dopouští omylu.”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“...and what is a good weapon but a good idea made murderous flesh?”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things

“error. This is no easy thing to say concerning famous men deserving praise. But to err is human and God has given us reason to struggle to make the best of our nature. Woman”
― Paul Hoffman, The Last Four Things