Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Alexis Bass

Quote by Alexis Bass

Work

Love and Other Theories

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Alexis Bass

Browse famous quotes and profile details for Alexis Bass. more

You May Also Like

“This was what he stood for: a world where there would be room enough even for such a mass of clumsy and cumbersome freedom. A margin of humanity, of tolerance, where some of life’s beauty could take refuge. His eyes narrowed a little, and an ironic, bitter smile came to his lips. I know you all, he thought. Today you say that elephants are archaic and cumbersome, that they interfere with roads and telegraph poles, and tomorrow you’ll begin to say that human rights too are obsolete and cumbersome, that they interfere with progress, and the temptation will be so great to let them fall by the road and not to burden ourselves with that extra load. And in the end man himself will become in your eyes a clumsy luxury, an archaic survival from the past, and you’ll dispense with him too, and the only thing left will be total efficiency and universal slavery and man himself will disappear under the weight of his material achievement. He had learned that much behind the barbed wire of the forced labor camp: it was our education, a lesson be was not prepared to forget.”

Life LessonsHumanityHuman RightsToleranceAnimal RightsBeauty Of LifeIndustrializationWesternizationLabor Camp
Book:The Roots of Heaven
Create image

“He might all the same do a little something for us. We’re on our backs, doesn’t He see?' 'I’m doing my best, I tell you,' said Father Julien. 'I pray and I pray and I pray . . .' 'Even we find a way of doing something for the may- beetles.’ 'You don’t give a damn about the may-beetles, you bastards,' said Father Julien. 'You do it out of pride. If you weren’t in a forced labor camp you’d step on may-beetles without even noticing their existence. This is something that happens in the head, not in the heart. You’re bursting with pride, that’s what it is.”

PrideSurvivalSurvivorsConcentration CampGods PlanConcentration CampsGods PresenceLabor CampHuman Pride
Book:The Roots of Heaven
Create image

“Either it falls on your head like a roof tile or it attaches itself to your insides like a tapeworm. Afterward, you no longer see the world in the same way. You’ve got only one thing on your mind: the thing that has taken you over, body and soul. You want to lift it so you can see what’s under it. And from that point on, you can never turn back. Besides, you’re no longer giving the orders. You think you’re in control, doing what you want to do, but it’s not true. You’re nothing but the instrument of your own frustrations. For you, life and death come down to the same thing, Somewhere, you must have renounced everything that could have given you a chance of returning to earth, to the real world. You’re an extraterrestrial. You live in a kind of limbo, stalking houris and unicorns. As for this world, you don’t even want to hear about it anymore. You’re just waiting for the right moment to cross the threshold. The only way to get back what you’ve lost or to fix what you’ve screwed up -- in other words, the only way to make something of your life -- is to end it with a flourish. … The way you see it, the day of your funeral procession will be the day when you’re exalted in other people’s eyes.”

TerrorismTrue BelieverIsraeli Palestinian ConflictFundmentalism
Author:Yasmina Khadra
Create image