Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Karel Capek (Czech Novelist)

Karel Čapek (1890–1938) was a Czech novelist, short-story writer, playwright, and essayist. A prominent Czech literary figure of the 1920s and 1930s, he is known for R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots, 1920,) which introduced the word robot to the English language, and The Insect Play (1921, written with his brother Josef (1887–1945.))

Born in Malé Svatoňovice, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, now the Czech Republic, Čapek studied philosophy in Prague, Berlin, and Paris. In 1917, he settled in Prague as a writer, journalist, and stage director at Prague’s Vinograd Theatre. He wrote with his brother Josef, a painter who also illustrated several of Karel’s books.

Much of Čapek’s work comprises inquiries into philosophical ideas. R.U.R.: Rossum’s Universal Robots (1920) features a scientist who produces human-like machines that, years later, dominate humanity and threaten it with extinction. For this play, Čapek invented the word “robot,” stemming from the Czech word robota (‘drudgery’) for forced labor. Subsequent novels include Továrna na absolutno (1922; The Absolute at Large,) Krakatit (1924; An Atomic Phantasy,) and Válka s mloky (1936; The War with the Newts.)

Ze života hmyzu (1921; The Insect Play) lampoons human greed, complacency, and selfishness, emphasizing the relativity of human values and the need to come to terms with life. Čapek’s most mature work is the trilogy of novels Hordubal (1933,) Povětroň (1934; Meteor,) and Obyčejný život (1934; An Ordinary Life.) Vec Makropulos (1922) formed the basis of Leoš Janáček’s opera The Makropulos Affair (1925.)

Biographies include Bohuslava R. Bradbrook’s Karel Čapek: In Pursuit of Truth, Tolerance, and Trust (1998) and William E. Harkins’s Karel Čapek (1962.)

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Karel Capek

Let no one think that real gardening is a bucolic and meditative occupation. It is an insatiable passion, like everything else to which a man gives his heart.
Karel Capek
Topics: Gardening

Man will never be enslaved by machinery if the man tending the machine be paid enough.
Karel Capek

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