💬 Quotes

"A sweet marsh-mallow, as sensitive as a geranium—not half hard enough."

"I don't care whether I walk or not. I only want to go to the Chillon Castle."

"You are a very strange man. I shouldn't think you were a American by your talking."

"The poor girl was a young American who was flouting the rules of the society in which she had been bred."

"She would be an inscrutable mystery if she weren't so artless."

"I have always been most particular. But I must decline to judge a person who has been vulgar enough to go about with Giovanelli."

"Wäre es da nicht einfach Blödsinn, sich mit diesem tönernen Figurenkram abzugeben, sich den Kopf heiß zu brüten über etwas, das im Grunde doch nur ein Nichts ist?"

"Das Schachspiel hat ja das vor anderen Spielen voraus, dass es seine Meister an keinerlei Sprachgrenzen bindet."

"Schach ist ja nur darum eine solche Teufelskunst, weil es keinen anderen Raum hat als den unsichtbaren, und weil seine Figuren gleichwohl von einer geometrischen Strenge sind, die uns den Kopf zerbrechen kann."

"Man kann sich das Schachspiel als eine Wissenschaft ohne Endpunkt vorstellen, als ein System, das sich in sich selbst verschlingt."

"Die Monotonie dieser absoluten Leere, dieses Nichts, das mich umgab, trieb mich dazu, mich an irgendetwas festzuklammern."

"Er war ein Schachgenie von absolutem Format, aber eben nur das: ein Automat, in dem das Schachprogramm mechanisch ablief."

"Hospital Sketches is not a record of glory, but a record of suffering, endurance, and quiet heroism."

"The ward was a microcosm of the great conflict outside—divided by politics, yet united in pain."

"In the presence of such vast suffering, words lose their power, leaving only the eloquence of service."

"A soldier's courage is tested not merely in the sudden flash of battle, but in the long, silent hours of convalescence."

"The humblest cottage and the grandest hall are alike to the grim visitor who walks these corridors."

"We learn the true cost of our national preservation not from the reports of generals, but from the pale faces upon these narrow cots."

"The volatile truth of our words should continually betray the inadequacy of the residuary datum; their material polish should be at least the symbol of their extreme rarity."

"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant? We should live in all the ages of the world in an hour; ay, in all the worlds of the ages."