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I had no children. I haven't transmitted the legacy of our misery to any creature.

— Machado de Assis

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Notes from Wikiquote

Description: the words of the character, Brás Cubas.

Topics

Philosophy

More quotes by Machado de Assis

Life is so beautiful that even the idea of death must be born before it can be realized.

Dom Casmurro (1899)

The best definition of love in the world is not worth one kiss from the girl you love.

There is truly only one misfortune: that of not being born.

As Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (1881)

Life…is an enormous lottery: the prizes are few, the failures innumerable. Out of the sighs of one generation are kneaded the hopes of the next. That's life.

Teoria do medalhão (1881)

The greatest sin, after the initial sin, is its publication.

Quincas Borba (1891)

All Machado de Assis quotes →

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

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There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Machado de Assis (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.