Quote

Although a system may cease to exist in the legal sense or as a structure of power, its values (or anti-values), its philosophy, its teachings remain in us. They rule our thinking, our conduct, our attitude to others. The situation is a demonic paradox: we have toppled the system but we still carry its genes.

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
Power
Attitude
Carry
Demonic
Still
Philosophy
Although
Teachings
May
System
Remain
Genes
Thinking
Situation
Rule
Paradox
Values
Structure
Conduct
Sense
Exist
Legal
Others
Revolution
Anti
Stills
Teaching
Cease
Toppled

More quotes by Ryszard Kapuscinski

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I'm trying to put more elements of the essay into my writing.
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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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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.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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He killed his enemies because he was afraid they would kill him. Amin ordered entire tribes to be put to death, because he feared they would rebel.
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There is a fundamental difference between the Polish experience of the state and the Russian experience. In the Polish experience, the state was always a foreign power. So, to hate the state was a patriotic act.
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Our salvation is in striving to achieve what we know we'll never achieve.
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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?
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The Cold War was waged in a particularly brutal and cynical way in Africa, and Africa seemed powerless to do anything to stop it.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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The Cold War in Africa is one of the darkest, most disgraceful pages in contemporary history, and everybody ought to be ashamed.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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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
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The extent of one man's guilt may be defined by how much of it is experienced by the party he injured.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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Amin hid nothing. Everybody knew everything. Yet the American Senate only introduced a resolution breaking off trade with Amin three months before his overthrow.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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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.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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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.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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Money changes all the iron rules into rubber bands.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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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.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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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.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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The continent is too large to describe. It is a veritable ocean, a separate planet, a varied, immensely rich cosmos. Only with the greatest simplification, for the sake of convenience, can we say 'Africa'. In reality, except as a geographical appellation, Africa does not exist.
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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.
Ryszard Kapuscinski
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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.
Ryszard Kapuscinski