Quote

in reference to Persepolis and all palaces, cities and temples of the past: could these wonders have come into being without that suffering? without the overseer's whip, the slave's fear, the ruler's vanity? was not the monumentality of past epochs created by that which is negative and evil in man?

Ryszard Kapuscinski

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Ryszard Kapuscinski
Age: 74 †
Born: 1932
Born: March 4
Died: 2007
Died: January 22
Journalist
Opinion Journalist
Photographer
Poet
Reporter
Translator
Writer
Pińsk
Past
Slave
Ruler
Come
Negative
Whips
Without
Created
Palaces
Men
Cities
Wonders
Wonder
Reference
Suffering
Rulers
Persepolis
Evil
Temples
Epochs
Fear
Vanity
Whip

More quotes by Ryszard Kapuscinski

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Our salvation is in striving to achieve what we know we'll never achieve.
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Literature seemed to be everything then. People looked to it for the strength to live, for guidance, for revelation.
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I'm trying to put more elements of the essay into my writing.
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Do not be misled by the fact that you are at liberty and relatively free that for the moment you are not under lock and key: you have simply been granted a reprieve.
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In modern Russia, you have no official, formal assessment of this past. Nobody in any Russian document has said that the policy of the Soviet government was criminal, that it was terrible. No one has ever said this.
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The official independence celebration was going to be held over four or five days, and a group of journalists from all over the world was allowed to fly in, because Angola was closed otherwise.
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This is the most intimate relationship between literature and its readers: they treat the text as a part of themselves, as a possession.
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If the crowd disperses, goes home, does not reassemble, we say the revolution is over.
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In the Russian experience, although the Russian state is oppressive, it is their state, it is part of their fabric, and so the relation between Russian citizens and their state is complicated.
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First you destroy those who create values. Then you destroy those who know what the values are, and who also know that those destroyed before were in fact the creators of values. But real barbarism begins when no one can any longer judge or know that what he does is barbaric.
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In the First World War, there was the sudden passion of nationalism, and the killing took place because of these emotions. But the Soviet case is different, because you had systematic murder, like the Holocaust.
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Photographing expresses human desire to preserve passing time. It is like a man struggling with time that elapses, and in general - a desire to preserve oneself.
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There are several reasons why Russians view the oppressive state positively. First, in the Russian Orthodox religion, there is an understanding of authority as something sent by God.
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Money changes all the iron rules into rubber bands.
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Our job is like a baker's work - his rolls are tasty as long as they're fresh after two days they're stale after a week, they're covered with mould and fit only to be thrown out.
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In order to feel contempt, you generally need to cherish some kind of feelings.
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My writing is a combination of three elements. The first is travel: not travel like a tourist, but travel as exploration. The second is reading literature on the subject. The third is reflection.
Ryszard Kapuscinski