Quotes from the Lapidarium Notebooks by Ryszard Kapuściński
The best-known quotes from Ryszard Kapuściński's Lapidarium notebooks — aphorisms and reflections on the world, truth, power, good and evil.
Translation note: Unless a published English translator is named, the wording on this page is an editorial translation from Polish and may differ from the authorised English-language edition.
A selection of the best-known quotes from Ryszard Kapuściński’s Lapidarium notebooks — aphorisms and reflections on the world, truth, power, and good and evil.
📖 See also: the book’s page
Best-known quotes
“When a human being encounters an obstacle he cannot destroy, he begins to destroy himself.” — Lapidarium
“I like to think of every road as one without end, running all the way around the world. It comes from the fact that from my Pinsk you could reach all the oceans by boat.” — Lapidarium
“People remember what they want to remember, not what actually happened.” — Lapidarium
“Countries that will not take in people from the Third World will themselves turn into the Third World.” — Lapidarium
“There is one place where Americans behave as if they were in church: quietly, with concentration, devoutly — in the bank.” — Lapidarium
“The degrees of barbarism: first those who create values are destroyed. Then those who still know what values are. Real barbarism is when nobody can judge any more, when nobody knows that what he is doing is barbarism.” — Lapidarium
“The higher the level at which a crime is committed, the greater the likelihood that it will be regarded not as a crime but as a necessary political move.” — Lapidarium
“If out of many truths you choose only one and follow it blindly, it turns into a falsehood and you become a fanatic.” — Lapidarium
“When questions appear to which there are no answers, it means a crisis has arrived.” — Lapidarium
“An anachronistic system is one that gives old answers to new questions.” — Lapidarium
“Boorishness is a carrier of contempt and violence, of meanness and the will to destroy.” — Lapidarium
“Evil acts quickly, violently, with a sudden, crushing force, whereas good as a rule acts more slowly; it needs time to reveal itself and bear witness — and so good is often late, and loses.” — Lapidarium
“If I were alone in the forest, no wrongdoer could meet me, I would hear neither a lie nor the crack of a whip.” — Lapidarium
“Bookshops look more and more like bakeries: they want only fresh goods.” — Lapidarium
“The higher the goal you set yourself, the more alone you will be.” — Lapidarium
“Many things we begin to understand too late, more of them very late, and most of them too late.” — Lapidarium
“Fools know that they are in the majority, that they have the advantage, that they rule.” — Lapidarium
See also
source: kapuscinski.info