Martha Gellhorn
Journalist
1908-11-08
Quotes by Martha Gellhorn
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The only way I can pay back for what fate and society have handed me is to try, in minor totally useless ways, to make an angry sound against injustice.
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I had a sudden notion of why history is such a mess: humans do not live long enough. We only learn from experience and have no time to use it in a continuous and sensible way.
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On the night of New Year's Day, I thought of a wonderful New Year's resolution for the men who run the world: get to know the people who only live in it.
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I do not hope for a world at peace, all of it, all the time. I do not believe in the perfectibility of man, which is what would be required for world peace; I only believe in the human race. I believe the human race must continue.
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No wars, in the war-logged record of our species, have been terminal. Until now, when we know that nuclear war would be the death of our planet. It is beyond belief that any governments–those brief political figures–arrogate to themselves the right to stop history, at their discretion.
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What the trees can do handsomely-greening and flowering, fading and then the falling of leaves-human beings cannot do with dignity, let alone without pain.
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It is high time that I learn to be more careful about hope, a reckless emotion for travelers. The sensible approach would be to the expect the worst, the very worst, that way you avoid grievous disappointment and who knows with a tiny bit of luck, you might even have a moderately pleasant surprise, like the difference between hell and purgatory.
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I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.
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The only way I can pay back for what fate and society have handed me is to try, in minor totally useless ways, to make an angry sound against injustice.
Read quote -
I do not hope for a world at peace, all of it, all the time. I do not believe in the perfectibility of man, which is what would be required for world peace; I only believe in the human race. I believe the human race must continue.
Read quote -
What the trees can do handsomely-greening and flowering, fading and then the falling of leaves-human beings cannot do with dignity, let alone without pain.
Read quote -
No wars, in the war-logged record of our species, have been terminal. Until now, when we know that nuclear war would be the death of our planet. It is beyond belief that any governments–those brief political figures–arrogate to themselves the right to stop history, at their discretion.
Read quote -
It is high time that I learn to be more careful about hope, a reckless emotion for travelers. The sensible approach would be to the expect the worst, the very worst, that way you avoid grievous disappointment and who knows with a tiny bit of luck, you might even have a moderately pleasant surprise, like the difference between hell and purgatory.
Read quote -
I had a sudden notion of why history is such a mess: humans do not live long enough. We only learn from experience and have no time to use it in a continuous and sensible way.
Read quote -
I know enough to know that no woman should ever marry a man who hated his mother.
Read quote -
On the night of New Year's Day, I thought of a wonderful New Year's resolution for the men who run the world: get to know the people who only live in it.
Read quote -
Furthermore, they were constantly informed by all the camp authorities that they had been abandoned by the world: they were beggars and lucky to receive the daily soup of starvation.
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I see mysteries and complications wherever I look, and I have never met a steadily logical person.
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Gradually I came to realize that people will more readily swallow lies than truth, as if the taste of lies was homey, appetizing: a habit.
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Thousand got away to other countries; thousands returned to Spain tempted by false promises of kindness. By the tens of thousands, these Spaniards died of neglect in the concentration camps.
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