Quotes About Impact

Companies that are indifferent to democracy have acquired an outsized role in it.

When Page describes Google reshaping the future of humanity, this isn't simply a description of the convenience it provides; what it aims to redirect is the course of evolution, in the Darwinian sense of the word. It's not too grandiose to claim that they are attempting to create a superior species, a species that transcends our natural form.

We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.

It certainly was not my intention to make you suffer, yet i have done so; obviously it never will be my intention to make you suffer, yet I shall always do so.

If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it?

Si el libro que leemos no nos despierta de un puñetazo en el cráneo, ¿para qué leerlo?… Un libro tiene que ser un hacha que rompa el mar de hielo que llevamos dentro.

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for?

I ought to be able to invent words capable of blowing the odor of corpses in a direction other than straight into mine and the reader's face.

If the book we are reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow to the head, why bother reading it in the first place?.... A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. --Franz Kafka in a letter to Oskar Pollak dated January 27, 1904

Wir brauchen aber die Bücher, die auf uns wirken wie ein Unglück, das uns sehr schmerzt, wie der Tod eines, den wie lieber hatten als uns, wie wenn wir in Wälder verstoßen würden, von allen Menschen weg, wie ein Selbstmord, ein Buch muss die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns.

Ich glaube, man sollte überhaupt nur noch solche Bücher lesen, die einen beißen und stechen. Wenn das Buch, das wir lesen, uns nicht mit einem Faustschlag auf den Schädel weckt, wozu lesen wir dann das Buch? Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns.

Faptele dumneavoastra vor lasa poate urme adînci de pasi în zapada, dar atît.

Todas tus medidas pedagógicas han dado en el blanco; no he esquivado ni un solo golpe; tal y como soy, soy el resultado (aparte, claro, de mi constitución y las influencias de la vida) de tu educación y de mi obediencia

Wir brauchen Bücher, die auf uns wirken wie ein Unglück, das uns sehr schmerzt, wie der Tod eines, den wir lieber hätten als uns, wie wenn wir in die Wälder verstoßen würden, von allen Menschen weg, ein Buch muss die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns

Precisamos de livros que nos afetam como um desastre, que nos magoam profundamente, como a morte de alguém que amamos mais do que a nós mesmos.

If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow on the head, what are we reading it for.

Acho que devemos ler apenas os tipos de livros que nos ferem ou esfaqueiam. Se o livro que estamos lendo não nos acorda com um golpe na cabeça, para que estamos lendo?

Wir brauchen aber die Bücher, die auf uns wirken wie ein Unglück, das uns sehr schmerzt, wie der Tod eines, den wie lieber hatten als und, wie wenn wir in Wälder verstoßen würden, von allen Menschen weg, wie ein Selbstmord, ein Buch muss die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. (An Oskar Pollak, 27.01.1904)

Si le livre que nous lisons ne nous réveille pas d'un coup de poing sur le crâne, à quoi bon le lire ?

What was always incomprehensible to me was your total lack of feeling for the suffering and shame you could inflict on me with your words and judgments. It was as though you had no notion of your power.

It's kind of wild and wonderful that 'West Side Story' continues to have a life after all these years. And when you see young people who are really engrossed by this film, that's so beautiful.

Wild animals are just as confused as people are now. You've got toxins in the water, oil, sewage, all sorts of things.

Our children think our world will end. It's a tragic thing. Adults don't think that. They don't see that we are eating the planet. But we are. If you take all the biomass of vertebrates on the planet, 98% are men and their domestic animals. All the wild animals in the world make up only 2%.

We as mountaineers have had a leading role in the destruction of the mountain wilderness environment that we practice our sport in.