Zitate und Sprüche aus Vor dem Tod sind alle gleich

I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.

Everything that made that giant tree is already contained inside this tiny little seed. All it needs is some time, a little bit of sunshine and rain, and voilá!

No one can reap the fruit before planting the trees.

The axe forgets, but the tree remembers.

Rivers do not drink their own water. Trees do not eat their own fruit. And clouds do not swallow their own rain. What great ones have is always for the benefit of others.

On the last day of the world I would want to plant a tree.

A society grows great when old men plant trees the shade of which they know they will never sit in. Good people do things for other people, that's it, the end.

We believe the trees should remain where they do best. In the woods, in the ground. Alive.

Our spirits need simple things, the smell of fresh-turned earth and the ancient music of wind among the trees.

One that would have the fruit must climb the tree.

Walk until the darkness is a memory, and you become the sun on the next traveler's horizon.

Humans had always been better at killing than any other living thing.

"And what if there's nothing in there?"
"You die and there's nothing beyond that. Nothing. Nothing remains. Someone might remember you for a little while after but not for long."

There's only one thing that can save a man from madness and that's uncertainty.

The number of places in paradise is limited; only in hell is entry open to all.

Do you know the parable about the frog in the cream? Two frogs landed in a pail of cream. One, thinking rationally, understood straight away that there was no point in resistance and that you can't deceive destiny. But then what if there's an afterlife – why bother jumping around, entertaining false hopes in vain? He crossed his legs and sank to the bottom. The second, the fool, was probably an atheist. And she started to flop around. It would seem that she had no reason to flail about if everything was predestined. But she flopped around and flopped around anyway . . . Meanwhile, the cream turned to butter. And she crawled out. We honour the memory of this second frog's friend, eternally damned for the sake of progress and rational thought.

There are some things that you don't want to do and you pledge to yourself that you won't do, you forbid yourself, and then suddenly they happen all by themselves. You don't even have time to think about them, and they don't make it to the cognitive centres of the brain: they just happen and that's it, and you're left just watching yourself with surprise, and convincing yourself that it wasn't your fault, it just happened all by itself.