# The Cave - Author: [José Saramago](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago.md) - Quotes: 36 - Book page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave ## Quotes > The young have the ability, but lack the wisdom, and the old have the wisdom, but lack the ability. p. 4 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/the-young-have.md) > Life is like that, full of words that are not worth saying or that were worth saying once but not any more, each word that we utter will take up the space of another more deserving word not deserving in its own right, but because of the possible consequences of saying it. p. 28 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/life-is-like.md) > Where do begin, he asked, Where you always have to begin, at the beginning, p. 53 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/where-do-begin.md) > The emptiness of old age had caused him to forget that, in matters of feeling and of the heart, too much is always better than too little. p. 69 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/the-emptiness-of-old.md) > Even the strongest spirits have the moments of irresistible weakness, p. 15 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/even-the-strongest.md) > … because contrary to what people say, two weaknesses don't make for a still greater weakness, but for renewed strength ... [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/because-contrary-to-what.md) > I don’t doubt that a man can live perfectly well on his own, but I’m convinced that he begins to die as soon as he closes the door of his house behind him. p. 29 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/i-dont-doubt.md) > He spent the whole time sitting on a log in the woodshed, sometimes starting straight ahead with the fixity of a blind man who knows that even if he turns his head in the other direction he will still not see anything, p. 30 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/he-spent-the.md) > Destiny isn’t taken in by people trying to make what came first come afterwards. p. 12 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/destiny-isnt-taken.md) > Human nature is, by definition, a talkative one, imprudent, indiscreet, gossipy, incapable of closing its mouth and keeping it closed. p. 117 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/human-nature-is-by-definition.md) > (a picture of)a naked woman, although she was covering her pubis with her right hand and her breasts with her left._ _ _ _ covering yourself up like that is worse than showing everything, p. 58 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/a-picture-of-a.md) > After all, we are always on time, behind time, in time, but never out of time, no matter how often we are told that we are. p. 73 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/after-all-we-are.md) > Earthenware is like people, it needs to be well treated. p. 21 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/earthenware-is-like.md) > You can learn almost everything from reading, But I read too, So you must know something, Now I’m not so sure, You’ll have to read differently then, How, The same method doesn’t work for everyone, each person has to invent his or her own, whichever suits them best, some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don’t understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they’re there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it’s the other side that matters, Unless, Unless what, Unless those river don’t just have two shores but many, unless each reader is his or own shore, and that shore is the only shore worth reaching, p. 60 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/you-can-learn.md) > At this time of life even a day makes a difference, the only saving grace is that sometimes things improve. p. 43 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/at-this-time.md) > Authoritarian, paralyzing, circular, occasionally elliptical, stock phrases, also jocularly referred to as nuggets of wisdom, are malignant plague, one of the very worst ever to ravage the earth. We say to the confused, Know thyself, as if knowing yourself was not the fifth and most difficult of human arithmetical operations, we say to the apathetic, Where there’s a will, there’s a way, as if the brute realities of the world did not amuse themselves each day by turning that phrase on its head, we say to the indecisive, Begin at the beginning, as if that beginning were the clearly visible point of a loosely wound thread and that all we had to do was to keep pulling until we reached the other end, and as if, between the former and the latter, we had held in our hands a smooth, continuous thread with no knots to untie, no snarled to untangle, a complete impossibility in the life of a skien, or indeed, if we may be permitted on more stock phrase, in the skien of life. … These are the delusions of the pure and unprepared, the beginning is never the clear, precise end of a thread, the beginning is a long, painfully slow process that requires time and patience in order to find out in which direction it is heading, a process that feels its way along the path ahead like a blind man, the beginning is just the beginning, what came before is nigh on worthless. p. 54 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/authoritarian-paralyzing-circular.md) > We would know far more about life’s complexities if we applied ourselves to the close study of its contradictions instead of wasting so much time on similarities and connections, which should anyway, be self-explanatory. p. 15 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/we-would-know.md) > The best way to killing a rose is to force it open when it is still only the promise of a bud. p. 89 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/the-best-way.md) > It’s is the old who age a day every hour, p. 85 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/its-is-the.md) > He got out of the van to see how many other suppliers were ahead of him and thus calculate, more or less accurately, how long he would have to wait. He was number thirteen, he counted again, no, there was no doubt about it. Although he was not a suspirations person, he knew about that number’s bad reputation, in any conversation about chance, fate or destiny, someone always chips in with some real-life experience of the negative, even fatal influence of the number thirteen. He tried to remember if he had ever been in this place in the queue before, but the long and the short of it was that either it had never happened or else he had simply forgotten. he got annoyed with himself, it was nonsense, utterly absurd to worry about something that has no real existence, yes, that was right, he had never thought of that before, numbers don’t really exist, things couldn’t care less what number we give them, its all the same to them if we say they’re number thirteen or number forty-four, we can conclude, at the very least, that they do not even notice the position they happen to end up in. people aren’t things, people always want to be in first place, p. 9 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/he-got-out.md) > There is relationship between sight and touch, something about eyes being able to see through the fingers touching the clay, about fingers being able to feel what the eyes are seeing without the fingers actually touching it. p. 20 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/there-is-relationship.md) > Encyclopedias are like immutable cycloramas, prodigious projectors whose reels have got stuck and which show, with a kind of maniacal fixity, a landscape which, because it is condemned to be only and for all eternity what it was, will at the same time grow older more decrepit and more unnecessary.The encyclopedia purchased by Cipriano Algor's father is magnificent and as useless as a line of poetry we cannot quite remember. p. 57 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/encyclopedias-are-like.md) > The only time we can talk about death is while we’re alive, not afterwards. p. 22 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/the-only-time.md) > Time is a master of ceremonies who always ends up putting us in our rightful place, we advance, stop and retreat according to his orders, our mistake lies in imagination that we can catch him out. p. 115 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/time-is-a-master.md) > There comes a point when the confused or abused person hears a voice saying in his head, Oh well, might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, and, depending on the particular situation in which he finds him he either spends his last bit of money on a lottery ticket, or places on the gaming table the watch he inherited from his father and silver cigarette case that was a gift from his mother, or bets everything he has on red even though he knows that red has come up five times in a row, p. 14 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/there-comes-a-point.md) > Each part in itself constitutes the whole to which it belongs. p. 68 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/each-part-in-itself.md) > Lord knows why they depict death with wings when death is everywhere. p. 112 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/lord-knows-why.md) > In general, fakirs, like scribes and potters, are sitting down, when he’s standing up, a fakir is just like an other man, and sitting down, he’ll be smaller than the others, p. 60 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/in-general-fakirs.md) > Age carries with it a double load of guilt, p. 69 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/age-carries-with.md) > Don’t quibble with the king over pears, let him eat the ripe ones and give you the green ones. p. 78 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/dont-quibble-with.md) > The day before is what we bring to the day we're actually living through, life is a matter of carrying along all those days-before just as someone might carry stones, and when we can no longer cope with the load, the work is done. p. 61 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/the-day-before.md) > Very few people are aware that in each of our fingers, located somewhere between the firs phalange, the mesophalange and the metaphalange, there is a tiny brain. [...] It should be noted that fingers are without brains, these develop gradually with the passage of time and with the help of what the eyes see…. That is why the fingers have always excelled at uncovering what is concealed. p. 64 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/very-few-people.md) > Every thing in life is a uniform; the only time our bodies are truly in civilian dress is when we’re naked. p. 92 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/every-thing-in-life.md) > Creating is always so much more stimulating than destroying. p. 107 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/creating-is-always.md) > Words were not given to man in order to conceal his thoughts. p. 124 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/words-were-not.md) > He felt very tired, not from the mental effort, but because he had suddenly seen what the world was like, how there are many lies and truths, p. 73 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/jose-saramago/the-cave/he-felt-very.md)