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Quote by Joseph Roth

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The Legend of The Holy Drinker

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Joseph Roth
Joseph Roth

Joseph Roth, born on September 2, 1894, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was a renowned journalist and writer in the 20th century. Known for his profound insights into European society and politics, Roth's work has left a lasting impact on literature. more

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“The obstinacy of those people is funny. That someone may simply be fed up with them and their ways and may want to look for another company, that just cannot enter their heads. They can’t believe it. There must be a trick behind it, a dishonest trick, something crooked, something political, something they can understand. They’re so used to sniffing at their own behinds that when someone wants to get a breath of fresh air, to turn at last to something different, and more important, and threatened, something that's got to be saved at all costs, it's quite beyond them.”

Human NatureSincerityWestern CivilizationWestern CultureCallousnessBelief In Humanity
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“To the people, Morel was the hero of a cause that had nothing to do with nations and political ideologies, a cause that had nothing to do with Africa and touched what was deepest in them — a secret rancor — a confused dream of being able one day to emerge victorious from the difficulty of being a man. They were staking a claim to respectful and decent treatment.”

Human NatureHumankindBeing AliveRancorBeing A ManDeepest Feelings Of LifeDeepest Self
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“As I say, I knew him well: it was I who, twenty years before, had got him his first scholarship in Paris. I had several times, in those distant days, sent him money taken from my own meager pay, in response to pressing letters, and of course he had never forgiven me for that. I did not blame him: I preferred ingratitude to servility. Later — much later — he had toured my territory as a member of Parliament and, on his return to Brazzaville, had had a great deal to say about me: apparently, I wasn’t doing anything to ‘free the backward tribes from the servitude of the past/ In that, too, he was right: I am in no hurry to do so. On the contrary, I have a more and more irresistible longing not only to preserve intact the customs and rites of the African forest, but sometimes even to share in them myself.”

HumanityHuman NatureAfricaEducated PeopleAfrican CMen Relationship
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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“Behind him stood Wa’itari, who believed that a new world war was imminent and who expected to appear after the fall of Europe, as the first hero of Pan-African nationalism. Behind them stood, as in the shadow of all great causes, mere bandits and murderers, as a pledge of earthly triumph. Behind them again, the silent awakening mass of the black peoples whose hour was striking, whatever happened. Behind them again, very far behind, and perhaps only in Morel’s heart, came the elephants. 'It was in fact a great cause, with the company a great cause always keeps: men of good will and those who exploit them, generous endeavor and sordid calculations, an ideal over the horizon, but also the treachery of ends justifying means. Man’s oldest company, I tell you, a noble cause and a pack of scoundrels behind it, a generous dream and all the purity that’s needed to cause great massacres ...”

HumanityHuman NatureWarsRevolutionsHuman Kind
Book:The Roots of Heaven
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