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Sadegh Hedayat

Sadegh Hedayat Quotes

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Famous Sadegh Hedayat Quotes

“I am afraid that I may die tomorrow without knowing myself. My life experiences have taught me that a frightful chasm separates me from the others. The same experiences also have taught me when to remain silent and keep my thoughts to myself. Nevertheless, I have decided that I should write. That I should introduce myself to my shadow―the stooped shadow on the wall that voraciously swallows all that I put down. It is for him that I am making this experiment to see if we can know each other better. Since the time when I severed my ties with others, I want to know myself better. Absurd thoughts! Fine. Yet these thoughts torture me more than any reality. Are not these people who resemble me, who seemingly share my needs, whims and desires gathered here to deceive me? Are they not shadows brought into existence to mock and beguile me? Are not all my feelings, observations, and calculations imaginary and quite different from reality? I write only for the benefit of my shadow on the wall. I need to introduce myself to it. I thought in this base world, full of poverty and misery, for the first time in my life, a ray of sunshine shone on my life. But alas, instead of a sunbeam it was a transient beam, a shooting star that appeared to me in the likeness of a woman or an angel. In the light of that moment that lasted about a second, I witnessed all my life's misfortunes, and discovered their magnitude and grandeur. Then that beam of light disappeared into the dark abyss for which it was destined. No. I could not keep that transient beam for myself.”

WritingSilenceShadowMisery
Author:Sadegh Hedayat
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“نه، کسی تصمیم خودکشی را نمیگیرد، خودکشی با بعضی ها هست. در خمیره و در سرشت آنهاست، نمیتوانند از دستس بگریزند. این سرنوشت است فرمانروایی دارد ولی در همین حال این من هستم که سرنوشت خودم را درست کرده ام، حالا دیگر نمی‌توانم از دستش بگریزم، نمیتوانم از خودم فرار بکنم.”

FateDepressionSuicide
Author:Sadegh Hedayat
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“For some reason all activity, all happiness on the part of other people made me feel like vomiting. I was aware that my own life was finished and was slowly and painfully guttering out. What earthly reason had I to concern myself with the lives of the fools, the rabble-people who were fit and healthy, ate well, slept well, and copulated well and who had never experienced a particle of my sufferings or felt the wings of death every minute brushing against their faces?”

HappinessDeathSufferingHealthyPainfulFoolsVomit
Book:The Blind Owl
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“[...] nu, voi ajunge cel mult sa cred, sa ma cred pe mine insumi - fiindca pentru mine n-are nici o importanta daca ceilalti cred sau nu. Ma tem doar ca maine mor si nu m-am cunoscut inca. Sunt oare o fiinta autonoma si dotata cu individualitate? Habar n-am. Tocmai m-am privit in oglinda. Nu m-am recunoscut. Nu mai tineam sa stiu daca Dumnezeu exista cu adevarat sau daca e creatia propriei imagini a stapanilor pamantului, nelinistiti sa-si confirme prerogativele sacre, ca sa-si jefuiasca mai usor supusii - proiectie in ceruri a unei stari de lucruri terestre. Simteam atunci ce lucruri fragile si puerile sunt, in fata mortii, religia, credinta, convingerile; atatea nimicuri la discretia celor fericiti si sanatosi. Fata de teribila realitate a mortii si a chinurilor pe care le traversam, ceea ce ma invatasera despre rasplata rezervata sufletului pe lumea cealalta si despre ziua Judecatii de Apoi imi parea ca o amagire insipida.”

SelfDeathReligion
Book:The Blind Owl
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“I was growing inward incessantly; like an animal that hibernates during the wintertime, I could hear other peoples' voices with my ears; my own voice, however, I could hear only in my throat. The loneliness and the solitude that lurked behind me were like a condensed, thick, eternal night, like one of those nights with a dense, persistent, sticky darkness which waits to pounce on unpopulated cities filled with lustful and vengeful dreams. My whole being could now be summed up in my voice―an insane, absolute record. The force that, out of loneliness, brings two individuals together to procreate has its roots in this same insanity which exists in everyone and which is mingled with a sense of regret, tending gradually toward death...Only death does not tell lies! The presence of death annihilates all that is imaginary. We are the offspring of death and death delivers us from the tantalizing, fraudulent attractions of life; it is death that beckons us from the depths of life.”

DeathLoneliness
Book:The Blind Owl
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“همیشه زن باید به طرف من بیاید و هرگز من به طرف زن نمی روم . چون اگر من جلو زن بروم اینطور حس میکنم که آن زن برای خاطر من خودش را تسلیم نکرده ، ولی برای پول یا زبان بازی و یا یک علت دیگری که خارج از من بوده است . احساس یک چیز ساختگی و مصنوعی را میکنم . اما در صورتیکه اولین بار زن به طرف من بیاید ، او را میپرستم.”

True Love
Book:کاتیا
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“همه گمان میکنند بچه خوشبخت است. نه خوب یادم است آن وقت بیشتر حساس بودم. آن وقت هم مقلد و آب زیرکاه بودم. شاید ظاهرا میخندیدم یا بازی میکردم. ولی در باطن کمترین زخم زبان یا کوچکترین پیشامد ناگوار و بیهوده ساعتهای دراز فکر مرا به خود مشغول میداشت و خودم خودم را میخوردم”

PainChildhood
Book:زنده به‌گور
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“I saw that pain and disease existed and at the same time that they were void of sense and meaning. Among the men of the rabble I had become a creature of a strange, unknown race, so much so that they had forgotten that I had once been part of their world. I had the dreadful sensation that I was not really alive or wholly dead. I was a living corpse, unrelated to the world of living people and at the same time deprived of the oblivion and peace of death.”

PainDeathPeaceDiseaseDeadOblivionCreatureCorpseDreadful
Book:The Blind Owl
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“The sign of our time is that the dignity of the human personality has no place: the age is, as are its laws, impersonal, its heart as of stone... . Yet on arrest, in the name of these laws, we die like dogs, neither executioner nor victim making a sound. Because he has to gasp for air all his life, panting for breath is the man of today's only way out.”

MenWayHumansHeartAgeTodayLawDiesNamesSoundAirDogHe ManPersonalityDignityStonesBreathsVictimOur TimeExecutionersHuman Personality
Author:Sadegh Hedayat
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“What relationship could exist between the lives of the fools and healthy rabble who were well, who slept well, who performed the sexual act well, who had never felt the wings of death on their face every moment - what relationship could exist between them and one like me who has arrived at the end of his rope and who knows that he will pass away gradually and tragically?”

KnowsWellsEndsMomentsFacesFeltFoolHealthyWingsLike MeRopePassing Away
Author:Sadegh Hedayat
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