Quotes from Henryk Sienkiewicz

AÈ™a-i de când lumea, c? cine se introspecteaz? prea mult, acela nu mai e de acord nici cu sine însuÈ™i, în cele din urm?, iar cine nu-i de acord cu sine însuÈ™i, acela nu-i capabil s? ia o hot?râre.

England is never in a hurry because she is eternal.

Why does crime, even when as powerful as Cæsar, and assured of being beyond punishment, strive always for the appearances of truth, justice, and virtue? Why does it take the trouble?

If we repay evil with good, then how do we repay the good?

In the presence of the storm, thunderbolts, hurricane, rain, darkness, and the lions, which might be concealed but a few paces away, he felt disarmed and helpless.

Am auzit sau am citit c? filoanele de aur au uneori la suprafa?? un înveliÈ™ de cuarÈ›, din care e greu s? extragi metalul. Presupun c? È™i inima ta are un asemenea înveliÈ™; în?untru se afl? metalul preÈ›ios, dar afurisita asta de coaj? nu s-a topit de tot...

It appears to me that many cultured people are attacked by the same disease. Criticism of ourselves and everything else is corroding our active power; we have no stable basis, no point of issue, no faith in life.

It has been said that Poland is dead, exhausted, enslaved, but here is the proof of her life and triumph.

Sometimes I have thought that human misery goes far beyond human imagination,—imagination has its limits, and misery, like the vast seas, appears to be without end.

Prophet,' he said, 'Your doctrines I do not know; therefore if I accepted them, I would do it out of fear like a coward and a base man. Are you anxious that your faith be professed by cowards and base people?

She wasted and grew so thin that she no longer was a little girl, but the shadow of a little girl. The flame of her life flickered so faintly that it appeared sufficient to blow at it to extinguish it. Stas understood that death did not have to wait for a third attack to take her and he expected it any day or any hour.

Amid the stillness of the night, in the depths of the ravine, from the direction in which the corpses lay suddenly resounded a kind of inhuman, frightful laughter in which quivered despair, and joy, and cruelty, and suffering, and pain, and sobbing, and derision; the heart-rending and spasmodic laughter of the insane or condemned.

There, about a dozen times during the day, the wind drives over the sky the swollen clouds, which water the earth copiously, after which the sun shines brightly, as if freshly bathed, and floods with a golden luster the rocks, the river, the trees, and the entire jungle.

He who knew how to live should know how to die.

What dreadful misfortune awaited them among the savage hordes intoxicated with blood?

Poland! Poland! The very name carries with it sighings and groanings, nation-murder, brilliance, beauty, patriotism, splendors, self-sacrifice through generations of gallant men and exquisite women; indomitable endurance of bands of noble people carrying through world-wide exile the sacred fire of wrath against the oppressor, and uttering in every clime a cry of appeal to Humanity to rescue Poland.

They were like two poor little leaves in a storm which bore death and annihilation not only to the heads of individuals, but to whole towns and entire tribes. What hand could snatch it and save two small, defenseless children?

They did not, however, infect the air as the Sudanese sun dried them up like mummies; all had the hue of gray parchment, and were so much alike that the bodies of the Europeans, Egyptians, and negroes could not be distinguished from each other.