Translator

Michel de Montaigne

Philosophy

1533–1592

"He who should teach men to die would at the same time teach them to live."

Arthur Schopenhauer

Philosophy

Idealism

1788–1860

"Life is a business that does not cover the costs."

🇺🇸Henry David Thoreau

Literature

Western philosophy

1817–1862

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.."

🇦🇹Franz Kafka

Literature

Realism

1894–1924

"From the true antagonist illimitable courage is transmitted to you."

Rainer Maria Rilke

Literature

Symbolism

1875–1926

"Surely all art is the result of one’s having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, where no one can go any further."

🇩🇪Friedrich Schiller

Literature

Sturm und Drang

1895–1990

"What one refuses in a minuteNo eternity will return."

Thomas Hobbes

Philosophy

empiricism

1588–1679

"The source of every Crime, is some defect of the Understanding; or some error in Reasoning; or some sudden force of the Passions."

Geoffrey Chaucer

Literature

1343–1400

"         Of all the floures in the mede, Than love I most these floures whyte and rede, Swiche that men callen daysies in our toun."

🇩🇪Friedrich Hölderlin

Philosophy

Idealism

1770–1843

"Wer das Tiefste gedacht, liebt das Lebendigste."

Niccolò Machiavelli

Philosophy

High Renaissance

1449–1527

"A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice."

🇦🇷Jorge Luis Borges

Literature

1899–1986

"Thus fought the heroes, tranquil their admirable hearts, violent their swords, resigned to kill and to die."

🇮🇪Samuel Beckett

Literature

Nouveau Roman

1906–1989

"Does one ever know oneself why one laughs?"

🇯🇵Haruki Murakami

Literature

Surrealism

b. 1949

"Being with her I feel a pain, like a frozen knife stuck in my chest. An awful pain, but the funny thing is I'm thankful for it. It's like that frozen pain and my very existence are one."

🇫🇷Simone Weil

Philosophy

1909–1943

"The full expression of personality depends upon its being inflated by social prestige; it is a social privilege."

🇺🇸Ezra Pound

Literature

1885–1972

"The art of letters will come to an end before A.D. 2000. I shall survive as a curiosity."

Max Stirner

Philosophy

individualism

1806–1856

"Whoso is full of sacred love loves only the spook, the “true man,” and persecutes with dull mercilessness the individual, the real man."

🇫🇷Jean Baudrillard

Philosophy

Post-structuralism

1929–2007

"There are only a few images that are not forced to provide meaning, or have to go through the filter of a specific idea."

Stefan Zweig

Literature

1881–1942

"On the whole, more men had perhaps escaped into the war than from it."

🇮🇹Umberto Eco

Literature

1932–2016

"I don't even have an E-mail address. I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages."

🇩🇪Walter Benjamin

Literature

Idealism

1892–1940

"History breaks down in images not into stories."

🇫🇷Guy Debord

Philosophy

Situationist International

1931–1994

"With the destruction of history, contemporary events themselves retreat into a remote and fabulous realm of unverifiable stories, uncheckable statistics, unlikely explanations and untenable reasoning."

🇺🇸Ursula K. Le Guin

Literature

1929–2018

"All men were alien one to another, at times, not only aliens."

🇺🇸Vladimir Nabokov

Literature

modernism

1912–1977

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness."

Samuel Butler (novelist)

Literature

1835–1902

"The pursuit of truth is chimerical. That is why it is so hard to say what truth is. There is no permanent absolute unchangeable truth; what we should pursue is the most convenient arrangement of our ideas."

🇬🇧Anthony Burgess

Music

1917–1993

"The window opened gently and a still Autumn night entered cat-like. Edwin smelt freedom and London autumn – decay, smoke, cold, motor oil."

🇨🇭Alfred-Maurice de Zayas

Law

b. 1947

"We don’t want a dystopian future in which corporations and not democratically elected governments call the shots. We don’t want an international order akin to post-democracy or post-law."

George Eliot

Journalism

Realism

1819–1880

"Come in, Adam, and rest; it has been a hard day for thee."

William Hazlitt

Literature

1778–1830

"An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may."

Giacomo Casanova

diplomacy

1725–1798

"One of the advantages of a great sorrow is that nothing else seems painful."

🇫🇷Jean-Baptiste Say

Business

1767–1832

"Demand and supply are the opposite extremes of the beam, whence depend the scales of dearness and cheapness; the price is the point of equilibrium, where the momentum of the one ceases, and that of the other begins."

🇳🇵Laxmi Prasad Devkota

Literature

1909–1959

"The thing which identifies is called eyes,understands is called brain, listens is called ear and feels is heart. To be devoid of these four things is the signs of being a beast."

🇮🇷Ali Khamenei

Politics

destruction of Israel in Iranian policy

1939–2026

"It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region."

🇬🇧Richard Aldington

Literature

1892–1962

"By the sense of mystery I understand the experience of certain places and times when one's whole nature seems to be in touch with a prescence, a genius loci, a potency."

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Literature

literary realism

1871–1922

"The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence."

Nicolaus Copernicus

Science

1473–1543

"'Body of Copernicus' identified – BBC article including image of Copernicus using facial reconstruction based on located skull"

🇩🇪Herta Müller

Literature

b. 1953

"The real secret is why love starts out with claws like a cat and then fades with time like a half-eaten mouse."

🇯🇵Yukio Mishima

Literature

Postmodernism

1925–1970

"Actually the action called a kiss represented nothing more for me than some place where my spirit could seek shelter."

🇮🇷Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel

Politics

b. 1945

"Iranian Official: "No Place in Israel Will Be Safe"

🇷🇺Boris Pasternak

Literature

Futurism

1890–1960

"I don't like people who have never fallen or stumbled. Their virtue is lifeless and it isn't of much value. Life hasn't revealed its beauty to them."

🇩🇪Max Ernst

Art

Surrealism

1891–1976

"The 2nd of April at 9:45 a.m. Max Ernst had his first contact with the sensible world, when he came out of the egg which his mother had laid in an eagle's nest and which the bird had brooded for seven years."