Antal Szerb quotes

Antal Szerb quotes

last updated: November 28, 2023

“There are many who lust for the simple answers of doctrine or decree. They are on the left and right. They are not confined to a single part of the society. They are terrorists of the mind.”
“Attachment to the Divine leads to detachment from the mind. This leads to the realization that the nature of the Seer and the Divine are the same.”
“You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart. You cannot have a good character today and be merely a petty reformer.”
“You have your identity when you find out, not what you can keep your mind ON, but what you can't keep your mind OFF.”
“The minds of stone lovers had colonised stones as lichens clung to them with golden or grey-green florid stains. The human world of stones is caught in organic metaphors like flies in amber. Words came from flesh and hair and plants. Reniform, mammilated, botryoidal, dendrite, haematite. Carnelian is from carnal, from flesh. Serpentine and lizardite are stone reptiles ; phyllite is leafy-green.”
“London is a city of clubs and private houses. You have to be a member.”

Source : Alec Waugh (2011). “The Sugar Islands: A Collection of Pieces Written About the West Indies Between 1928 and 1953”, p.208, A&C Black
“Do you realise that people die of boredom in London suburbs? It's the second biggest cause of death amongs the English in general. Sheer boredom...”
“Although I have lived in London, I have never really considered London my home because it was always going to be a stopping-off point for me, and it has been too.”
“I remind you that there are churches so completely out of the hands of God that if the Holy Spirit withdrew from them, they wouldn't find it out for many months”
“April fool, n. The March fool with another month added to his folly.”

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