Pompeii Quotes

“To be brave, by definition, one has first to be afraid.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“What is leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“People perish. Books are immortal.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“But only a fool sails into combat with nature”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“Men mistook measurement for understanding. And they always had to put themselves at the center of everything. That was their greatest conceit. The earth is becoming warmer-it must be our fault! The mountain is destroying us-we have not propitiated the gods! It rains too much, it rains too little-a comfort to think that these things are somehow connected to our behavior, that if only we lived a little better, a little more frugally, our virtue would be rewarded. But here was nature, sweeping toward him-unknowable, all-conquering, indifferent-and he saw in her fires the futility of human pretensions.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“Civilization was a relentless war that man was doomed to lose eventually.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“The destination of the journey could not be altered, only the manner in which one approached it - whether one chose to walk erect or to be dragged complaining through the dust.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“The natural impulse of men is to follow, he thought, and whoever has the strongest sense of purpose will always dominate the rest.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“... Mother Nature is punishing us, ..., for our greed and selfishness. We torture her at all hours by iron and wood, fire and stone. We dig her up and dump her in the sea. We sink mine shafts into her and drag out her entrails - and all for a jewel to wear on a pretty finer. Who can blame her if she occasionally quivers with anger?" - Pliny, Pg. 176”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“A nothing that said everything.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“For them, it was just an ordinary miracle.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“And the great thing about money is that it doesn’t matter when you harvest it. It’s an all-year crop.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“What was leadership, after all, but the blind choice of one route over another and the confident pretense that the decision was based on reason?”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“Thus the thermal energy released during the A.D. 79 eruption would have been roughly 2 x 1018 joules—or about 100,000 times that of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“Brave words. Easy to write when one was young and death was still skulking over a distant hill somewhere... - Pg. 82”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“As if earthquakes aren’t as much a part of living in Campania as hot springs and summer droughts!”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“BATHS WERE NOT a luxury. Baths were the foundation of civilisation. Baths were what raised even the meanest citizen of Rome above the level of the wealthiest hairy-arsed barbarian. Baths instilled the triple disciplines of cleanliness, healthfulness and strict routine.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“Con quale velocità, pensò l'ingegnere, la natura si riprende ciò che ha dovuto cedere: pioggia e gelo sbriciolano la muratura, le strade sono sepolte da strati verdi di erbaccia, gli acquedotti sono ostruiti dalla stessa acqua per portare la quale sono stati costruiti. Quella della civiltà è un'incessante guerra che l'uomo è destinato a perdere.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“[...] ma a Roma un uomo onesto era un uomo raro: cioè un cretino.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“La cenere s'indurì, cadde altra pomice. L'interno dei cadaveri marcì e insieme a loro, con il passare dei secoli, marcì anche il ricordo dell'esistenza in quel punto di una città. Pompei divenne una città di cittadini vuoti dai contorni perfetti, stretti l'uno all'altro o isolati, con gli abiti volati via o sollevati sul capo, che tentano disperatamente di afferrare i loro oggetti più adorati senza riuscire a stringere nulla tra le mani: vuote entità sospese a mezz'aria al livello dei tetti.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“and selfishness. We torture her at all hours by iron and wood, fire and stone. We dig her up and dump her in the sea. We sink mineshafts into her and drag out her entrails—and all for a jewel to wear on a pretty finger. Who can blame her if she occasionally quivers with anger?”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“Nature has granted man no better gift than the shortness of life. The senses grow dull, the limbs are numb, sight, bearing, gait, even the teeth and alimentary organs die before we do, and yet this period is reckoned a portion of life." - Pg. 82”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“Men mistook measurement for understanding. And they always had to put themselves at the center of everything. That was their greatest conceit. The earth is becoming warmer—it must be our fault! The mountain is destroying us—we have not propitiated the gods! It rains too much, it rains too little—a comfort to think that these things are somehow connected to our behavior, that if only we lived a little better, a little more frugally, our virtue would be rewarded.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“Men mistook measurement for understanding. And they always had to put themselves at the center of everything. That was their greatest conceit. The earth is becoming warmer—it must be our fault! The mountain is destroying us—we have not propitiated the gods! It rains too much, it rains too little—a comfort to think that these things are somehow connected to our behavior, that if only we lived a little better, a little more frugally, our virtue would be rewarded. But here was nature, sweeping toward him—unknowable, all-conquering, indifferent—and he saw in her fires the futility of human pretensions.”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii

“Nature”
― Robert Harris, Pompeii