Henryk Sienkiewicz quotes

Henryk Sienkiewicz was a renowned Polish novelist and journalist, best known for his historical works. His novel "Quo Vadis" gained worldwide acclaim and contributed to his winning the Nobel Prize in Literature. He became a symbol of Polish national pride and literary achievement. Here are 53 of his quotes:

But I think happiness springs from another source, a far deeper one that doesn't depend on will because it comes from love.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Life deserves laughter, hence people laugh at it.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Nevertheless, in this sea of human wretchedness and malice there bloomed at times compassion, as a pale flower blooms in a putrid marsh.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

There is within us a moral instinct which forbids us to rejoice at the death of even an enemy.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

I know from experience that to one who thinks much and feels deeply, it often seems that he has only to put down his thoughts and feelings in order to produce something altogether out of the common; yet as soon as he sets to work he falls into a certain mannerism of style and common phraseology; his thoughts do not come spontaneously, and one might almost say that it is not the mind that directs the pen, but the pen leads the mind into common, empty artificiality.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

It has been said that Poland is dead, exhausted, enslaved, but here is the proof of her life and triumph.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

I know that even the meanest person has still at his disposition high-sounding words wherewith to mask his real character.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Anxiety prepares the organism badly for an ordeal which even under more favorable circumstances would not be an easy thing to bear.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

I consider that in dialectics I am the equal of Socrates. As to women, I agree that each has three or four souls, but none of them a reasoning one.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

It is an altogether wrong idea that the modern product of civilization is less susceptible to love.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Nations are represented by their poets and their writers in the open competition for the Nobel Prize. Consequently the award of the Prize by the Academy glorifies not only the author but the people whose son he is, and it bears witness that that nation has a share in the universal achievement, that its efforts are fruitful, and that it has the right to live for the profit of mankind. If this honour is premous to all, it is infinitely more so to Poland. It has been said that Poland is dead, exhausted, enslaved, but here is the proof of her life and triumph. Like Galileo, one is forced to think when before the eyes of the world homage has been rendered to the importance of Poland's achievement and her genius.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Do not be afraid, Leon, - I feel much better; but in case anything should happen to me I wanted to leave you something to remember me by. Perhaps I ought not to say it so soon after my husband's death; but as I might die, I wanted to tell you now that I loved you very, very much.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

The sky is one whole, the water another; and between those two infinities the soul of man is in loneliness.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

On an exhausted field, only weeds grow.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

If the infinity of the sea may call out thus, perhaps when a man is growing old, calls come to him, too, from another infinity still darker and more deeply mysterious; and the more he is wearied by life the dearer are those calls to him.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

This homage has been rendered not to me - for the Polish soil is fertile and does not lack better writers than me - but to the Polish achievement, the Polish genius.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

I should be blind if I did not perceive that some power as strong as the universe is parting us. What this power is, what it is called, I do not know. I know only that if I knelt down, beat my head on the floor, prayed, and cried out for mercy, I might move a mountain sooner than move that power. As nothing now could part me from Aniela but death, she must die. This may be very logical, but I do not consent to part from her.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Let there be at once also the end of the world! O God! if that is to be my punishment, I swear I will go away, never to see her again in life, - only save her!

Henryk Sienkiewicz

I follow you - because I must. Do you think I am not afraid of death? I am afraid because I do not know what there is, and see only darkness without end; which makes me recoil. I do not know whether there be nothingness, or existence without space and time; perhaps some midplanetary wind carries the spiritual monad from star to star to implant it in an ever-renewing existence. I do not know whether there be immense restlessness, or a peace so perfect as only Omnipotence and Love can bestow on us. But since you have died through my "I do not know," how could I remain here - and live? The more I fear, the more I do not know, - the more I cannot let you go alone; I cannot, Aniela mine, - and I follow. Together we shall sink into nothingness, or together begin a new life; and here below where we have suffered let us be buried in oblivion.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

In regard to this I have no illusion whatever. I have already said that since she changed our mutual relations into ideal feelings, they have become dear to her. Let it remain thus, provided they be dear to her.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

Riches, glory, power are mere smoke, vanity! The rich man will find a richer than himself; the greater glory of another will eclipse a man who is famous; a strong man will be conquered by a stronger. But can Cæsar himself, can any god even, experience greater delight or be happier than a simple mortal at the moment when at his breast there is breathing another dear breast, or when he kisses beloved lips? Hence love makes us equal to the gods, O Lygia.

Henryk Sienkiewicz

O Petronius, thou hast seen what endurance and comfort that religion gives in misfortune, how much patience and courage before death; so come and see how much happiness it gives in ordinary, common days of life. People thus far did not know a God whom man could love, hence they did not love one another; and from that came their misfortune, for as light comes from the sun, so does happiness come from love. Neither lawgivers nor philosophers taught this truth, and it did not exist in Greece or Rome; and when I say, not in Rome, that means the whole world. The dry and cold teaching of the Stoics, to which virtuous people rally, tempers the heart as a sword is tempered, but it makes it indifferent rather than better.

Henryk Sienkiewicz