Jose Bergamin Quotes

The quality of a man's mind can generally be judged by the size of his wastepaper basket.

Art is good but it isn't the best.

I fear only that which I love, says man, according to Montaigne. Woman replies: I love only that which I fear.

Man is a question; woman is an answer. The mistake women make today is to offer themselves as answers before being questioned.

There are those who dance to the rhythm that is played to them, those who only dance to their own rhythm, and those who don't dance at all.

When you are listening to music it is better to cover your eyes than your ears.

Life is a dangerous adventure, says the American, and he is half right: life is dangerous, but it's not an adventure.

What is reasoned has nothing to do with what is reasonable.

The novel is born of disillusionment; the poem, of despair.

Happiness is always a coincidence.

Try not to turn your life into a race, least of all an obstacle race.

A piece of advice always contains an implicit threat, just as a threat always contains an implicit piece of advice.

When I listen to the engine of my car, I might say it sounds fine, but it would not occur to me to say "What lovely music!

Effort and result are never simultaneous. In art, only the result counts.

An ignorance of Marx is as frequent among Marxists as an ignorance of Christ is among Catholics.

To be ready to fail is to be prepared for success.

When there is nothing to fear is the time to begin fearing everything.

Skepticism is provisional, even if it lasts a lifetime.

Even if you're not going anywhere, don't get in the way.

You can hesitate before deciding, but not once the decision is made.

Who learns most from a good book is the author.

There are no good or bad habits. All habits are, by definition, bad.

You can say the opposite of something you've said but you can't do the opposite of something you've done.

Drinking spirits cannot cause spiritual damage.

The man who spends all his time looking up to heaven is not always the best; in fact, he is usually the worst.

The thirst for adventure is the vent which Destiny offers; a war, a crusade, a gold mine, a new country, speak to the imagination and offer.

If you really believe music is dangerous, you should let it go in one ear and out the other.

True art tries not to attract attention in order to be noticed.

All true tradition usually appears revolutionary.

A reformer knows neither how to do nor to undo.

True solidarity is only possible among the solitary.

The first condition for making music is not to make a noise.

The man who gets drunk in peacetime is a coward. The man who gets drunk in wartime goes on being a coward.

Pride in a man is confused with dignity; in a woman, with self-love.

A German immersed in any civilization different from his own loses a weight equivalent in volume to the amount of intelligence he displaces.

You need to have a God, a lover, and an enemy, says the poet. Exactly: you need to have three enemies.

Better than succeeding little by little is failing at one go.

In French literature, you can choose a la carte; in Spanish literature, there is only the set meal.

A rocket is a reed that thinks brilliantly.

It may be impossible to have a revolution without crimes but that does not make revolution a crime.

In love, it is the weak who strike and the strong who caress.

A woman who does not become the slave of just one man becomes the slave of all men.

Sensuality without love is a sin; love without sensuality is worse than a sin.

To be thirsty and to drink water is the perfection of sensuality rarely achieved. Sometimes you drink water; other times you are thirsty.

A rocket is an experiment; a star is an observation.

To be young is to live in the hope of escaping youth; to be old, in the despair of having succeeded.

Theology is the logic of the Devil.

We say of an animal that it is intelligent, and we say the same thing of a woman; but in neither case is it usually appropriate, clearly for very different reasons.