Machado de Assis Quotes

• The best thing to do is to loosen my grip on my pen and let it go wandering about until it finds an entrance. There must be one – everything depends on the circumstances, a rule applicable as much to literary style as to life. Each word tugs another one along, one idea another, and that is how books, governments and revolutions are made – some even say that is how Nature created her species.

  Machado de Assis

  Book, Writing, Government

  Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (2010). “The Devil's Church and Other Stories”, p.11, University of Texas Press

  54 Copy quote

• A life without fighting is a dead sea in the universal organism.

  Machado de Assis

  Fighting, Sea, Strive

  Machado de Assis, Gregory Rabassa (1998). “The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas: A Novel”, p.185, Oxford University Press, USA

  20 Copy quote

• We kill time; time buries us.

  Machado de Assis

  Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1998). “The Posthumous Memoirs of Br?s Cubas”, p.165, Oxford University Press

  20 Copy quote

• Do not feel badly if your kindness is rewarded with ingratitude; it is better to fall from your dream clouds than from a third-story window.

  Machado de Assis

  Life, Dream, Kindness

  20 Copy quote

• There is nothing in the world so monstrously vast as our indifference.

  Machado de Assis

  World, Indifference

  Machado de Assis (1952). “Epitaph of a Small Winner”

  16 Copy quote

• Tomorrow's sun is on it's way - a relentless sun, inscrutable like life.

  Machado de Assis

  Way, Sun, Tomorrow

  Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (2010). “The Devil's Church and Other Stories”, p.77, University of Texas Press

  14 Copy quote

• There is nothing worse than giving the longest of legs to the smallest of ideas.

  Machado de Assis

  Ideas, Giving, Legs

  Machado de Assis (1994). “Dom Casmurro”, Penguin Classics

  18 Copy quote

• He felt that there is a loose balance of good and evil, and that the art of living consists in getting the greatest good out of the greatest evil.

  Machado de Assis

  Art, Evil, Balance

  Machado de Assis (2015). “Iaiá Garcia”, p.23, University Press of Kentucky

  28 Copy quote

• Out of the sighs of one generation are kneaded the hopes of the next.

  Machado de Assis

  Generations, Next, Sigh

  Machado de Assis (1963). “The Psychiatrist, and Other Stories”, p.113, Univ of California Press

  12 Copy quote

• Por que bonita, se coxa? Por que coxa, se bonita?

  Machado de Assis

  Machado de Assis (1998). “Memórias póstumas de Brás Cubas”, p.127, Atelie Editorial

  5 Copy quote

• Tears are not arguments.

  Machado de Assis

  Political, Tears, Argument

  12 Copy quote

• To him the stars seemed like so many musical notes affixed to the sky, just waiting for somebody to unfasten them. Someday the sky would be emptied, but by then the earth would be a constellation of musical scores

  Machado de Assis

  Stars, Sky, Waiting

  13 Copy quote

• Let Pascal say that man is a thinking reed. He is wrong; man is a thinking erratum. Each period in life is a new edition that corrects the preceding one and that in turn will be corrected by the next, until publication of the definitive edition, which the publisher donates to the worms.

  Machado de Assis

  Men, Thinking, Next

  Machado de Assis (1952). “Epitaph of a Small Winner”

  11 Copy quote

• It's the occasion that makes the revolution.

  Machado de Assis

  Revolution, Occasions

  13 Copy quote

• In woman sex corrects banality, in men it aggravates it.

  Machado de Assis

  Sex, Men, Banality

  8 Copy quote

• Some actions are even baser than the people who commit them.

  Machado de Assis

  People, Action, Crime

  Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (2010). “The Devil's Church and Other Stories”, p.40, University of Texas Press

  7 Copy quote

• A vida sem luta é um mar morto no centro do organismo universal.

  Machado de Assis

  Mars, Vida, Universal

  Machado de Assis “Romances de Machado de Assis - Obras Completas [Ilustrado, Notas, Biografia com Análises e Críticas, Resumos e Estudos de Cada Obra] - Dom Casmurro, Brás Cubas, Quincas Borba e outros - Vol. I: Romance”, LL Library

  8 Copy quote

• The conclusion, therefore, is that there are two major forces in society: love, which multiplies the species, and the nose, which subordinates it to the individual. Procreation, equilibrium.

  Machado de Assis

  Two, Noses, Individual

  Machado de Assis (1952). “Epitaph of a Small Winner”

  7 Copy quote

• Dreams disdain fine lines and finishing touches on landscapes – they content themselves with thick but representative brushstrokes.

  Machado de Assis

  Dream, Finishing, Lines

  Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (2010). “The Devil's Church and Other Stories”, p.13, University of Texas Press

  9 Copy quote

• I considered the case and realized that if something can exist in opinion without existing in reality, or exist in reality without existing in opinion, the conclusion is that of the two parallel lives, only opinion is necessary – not reality, which is only a secondary consideration.

  Machado de Assis

  Reality, Two, Opinion

  Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (2010). “The Devil's Church and Other Stories”, p.6, University of Texas Press

  15 Copy quote

• In ordinary life, the action of a third party does not free the contractor from an obligation; but the advantage of making a contract with heaven is that intentions are valid currency.

  Machado de Assis

  Party, Heaven, Ordinary

  Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Machado de Assis, John A. Gledson (1998). “Dom Casmurro”, p.146, Oxford University Press

  13 Copy quote

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