Jaroslav Hasek Quotes
Jaroslav Hasek offers a funny, plain-spoken sketch of modest heroes and absurd bureaucracy.
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Great times call for great men. There are unknown heroes who are modest, with none of the historical glamour of a Napoleon. If you analysed their character you would find that it eclipsed even the glory of Alexander the Great. Today you can meet in the streets of Prague a shabbily dressed man who is not even himself aware of his significance in the history of the great new era. He goes modestly on his way, without bothering anyone. Nor is he bothered by journalists asking for an interview. If you asked him his name he would answer you simply and unassumingly: 'I am Svejk:.'
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'And so they've killed our Ferdinand,' said the charwoman to Mr Svejk, who had left military service years before, after having been finally certified by an army medical board as an imbecile, and now lived by selling dogs - ugly, mongrel monstrosities whose pedigrees he forged. Apart from this occupation he suffered from rheumatism and was at this very moment rubbing his knees with Elliman's embrocation. 'Which Ferdinand, Mrs Muller?' he asked, going on with the massaging. 'I know two Ferdinands. One is a messenger at Prusa's, the chemist's, and once by mistake he drank a bottle of hair oil there. And the other is Ferdinand Kokoska who collects dog manure. Neither of them is any loss.' 'Oh no, sir, it's his Imperial highness, the Archduke Ferdinand, from Konopiste, the fat churchy one.'
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Jesus Christ was innocent too,' said Svejk, 'and all the same they crucified him. No one anywhere has ever worried about a man being innocent. Maul halten und weiter dienen ['Grin and bear it and get on with the job'] - as they used to tell us in the army. That's the best and finest thing of all.
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After debauches and orgies there always follows the moral hangover.
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I was discharged from the army for idiocy and officially certified by a special commission as an idiot. I'm an official idiot.
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And somewhere from the dim ages of history the truth dawned upon Europe that the morrow would obliterate the plans of today.
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When Å vejk subsequently described life in the lunatic asylum, he did so in exceptionally eulogistic terms: 'I really don't know why those loonies get so angry when they're kept there. You can crawl naked on the floor, howl like a jackal, rage and bite. If anyone did this anywhere on the promenade people would be astonished, but there it's the most common or garden thing to do. There's a freedom there which not even Socialists have ever dreamed of.
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“The lieutenant’s fooling around again with the telegraph girl at the station,” said the corporal, after he had gone. “He’s been running after her for a fortnight and he’s always frightfully furious when he comes from the telegraph office and he says about her: “She’s a whore. She won’t sleep with me!”
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“All along the line,' said the volunteer, pulling the blanket over him, 'everything in the army stinks of rottenness. Up till now the wide-eyed masses haven't woken up to it. With goggling eyes they let themselves be made into mincemeat and then when they're struck by a bullet they just whisper, "Mummy!" Heroes don't exist, only cattle for the slaughter and the butchers in the general staffs. But in the end every body will mutiny and there will be a fine shambles. Long live the army! Goodnight!”
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“Those who boggle at strong language are cowards, because it is real life which is shocking them, and weaklings like that are the very people who cause most harm to culture and character. They would like to see the nation grow up into a group of over-sensitive little people--masturbators of false culture...”
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“When afterwards he mentioned the names of the Tartars he had got to know on his pilgrimage, like Hallimulabalibay, to which he added a whole string of names he had himself invented, like Valivolavalivey, Malimulamalimey, Lieutenant Lukas could not stop himself from sying: 'I'll kick your backside, you mule. Go on, and be brief and to the point!”
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“I suffered the misfortune that I sat down at a table and started drinking one glass of beer after another.”
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“This is what opportunity brings with it. It's the self-determination of man. Every man in the course of his life eternal life undergoes countless changes and has to appear once in this worlds as a thief in certain periods of his activity.”
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“It was once said, and very rightly, that a man who is well brought-up may read anything. The only people who boggle at what is perfectly natural are those who are the worst swine and the finest experts in filth. In their utterly contemptible pseudo-morality they ignore the contents and madly attack individual words.”