# Quote — Joseph Roth, The Radetzky March

> Mass would be celebrated first by a Roman Catholic priest, then by a Greek orthodox priest. The most strenuous duties of all were the church ceremonies. He felt he had to pull himself together before God as if facing a superior. And he was old already. He could spare me any number of things! the Kaiser mused. But God is even older than I, and His decisions seem as unfathomable to me as mine seem to the soldiers in the army. And where would we be if every subordinate could criticize his superior?

- Author: [Joseph Roth](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-roth.md)
- Book: [The Radetzky March](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-roth/the-radetzky-march.md)
- Page: 219
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Roth#The_Radetzky_March_(1932)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-roth/the-radetzky-march/mass-would-be-celebrated

## More from this book

> In those days an Austrian district captain like Herr von Trotta would have been less shaken by the news of the sudden death of his only child than by the news of even a seemingly dishonorable action of that only child.

p. 265 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-roth/the-radetzky-march/in-those-days-an.md)

> “So,” he said, “you believe, you believe that we—”
>
> “Are doomed,” Chojnicki completed. “We are doomed, you and your son and I. We are, I tell you, the last members of a world in which God sheds his grace on majesties, and lunatics like myself make gold.”

p. 162 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-roth/the-radetzky-march/so-he-said.md)

> The beauteous appearance of the victuals gave the old man as much pleasure as their simplicity. For he set store by good solid fare, a tribute he paid to both his taste and his conviction; the latter, you see, he called Spartan. With felicitous skill, he thus combined the sating of his desire with the demands of duty. He was a Spartan. But he was also an Austrian.

p. 25 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/joseph-roth/the-radetzky-march/the-beauteous-appearance.md)