Quotes from Ryszard Kapu?ci?ski

If the crowd disperses, goes home, does not reassemble, we say the revolution is over.

People are not hungry because there is no food in the world. There is plenty of it; there is a surplus in fact. But between those who want to eat and the bursting warehouses stands a tall obstacle indeed: politics.

Three plagues, three contagions, threaten the world. The first is the plague of nationalism. The second is the plague of racism. The third is the plague of religious fundamentalism. All three share one trait, a common denominator--an aggressive, all-powerful, total irrationality. Anyone stricken with one of these plagues is beyond reason. In his head burns a sacred pyre that awaits its sacrificial victims.

Two lusts breed in the soul of man: the lust for aggresion, and the lust for telling lies. If one will not allow himself to wrong others, he will wrong himself. If he doesn't come across anyone to lie to, he will lie to himself in his own thoughts.

PojÄ…Å'em, ?e ka?dy Å›wiat ma wÅ'asnÄ… tajemnicÄ™ i ?e dostÄ™p do niej jest tylko na drodze poznania jÄ™zyka. <...> RozumiaÅ'em, ?e im wiÄ™cej bÄ™dÄ™ znaÅ' sÅ'ów, tym bogatszy, peÅ'niejszy i bardziej ró?norodny Å›wiat otworzy siÄ™ przede mnÄ….

Nothing creates a bond between people in Africa more quickly than shaed laughter".

Oil kindles extraordinary emotions and hopes, since oil is above all a great temptation. It is the temptation of ease, wealth, strength, fortune, power. It is a filthy, foul-smelling liquid that squirts obligingly up into the air and falls back to earth as a rustling shower of money.

There is a lot of warmth in an old cognac, a lot of sun. It will go to one's head calmly, without hurry.