B. Traven > Quotes

“Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn't know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world.”
― B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

“No use to preach to the working-man courtesy & politeness when at the same time the working-man is not given working conditions under which he can stay polite and soft-mannered.”
― B. Traven

“A trip to a Central American jungle to watch how Indians behave near a bridge won't make you see either the jungle or the bridge or the Indians if you believe that the civilization you were born into is the only one that counts. Go and look around with the idea that everything you learned in school and college is wrong.”
― B. Traven, The Bridge in the Jungle

“Morals are taught & preached not for the sake of heaven, but to assist those people on earth who have everything they need & more to retain their possessions & to help them to accumulate still more. Morals is the butter for those who have no bread.”
― B. Traven

“The creative person should have no other biography than his works.”
― B. Traven

“it would have been a rare thing anyhow for an official to come upon an idea that is not provided for in the regulations.”
― B. Traven, The Death Ship

“ordinary people can never fall over the walls, because they never dare climb high enough to see what is beyond the walls.”
― B. Traven, The Death Ship

“don't ever believe that kings were done with when the fathers of the country made a revolution.”
― B. Traven, The Death Ship

“The prison was very important - as everywhere on earth. Everywhere the building of a prison is the first step in the organization of a civilized state.”
― B. Traven

“If you wish to survive, you have to win the battle.”
― B. Traven

“It isn't the gold that changes man, it is the power which gold gives to man that changes the soul of man. This power, though, is only imaginary. If not recognized by other men, it does not exist.”
― B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

“There is no getting used to pain and suffering. You become only hard-boiled, and you lose a certain capacity to be impressed by feelings. Yet no human being will ever become used to sufferings to such an extent that his heart will cease to cry out that eternal prayer of all human beings: “I hope that my Liberator comes!” He is the master of the world, he who can make his coins out of the hope of slaves.”
― B. Traven, The Death Ship

“Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges!”
― B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

“That which was tortured yesterday is the powerful church today and a religion in decay tomorrow. The deplorable thing, the most deplorable thing, is that the people who were tortured yesterday, torture today.”
― B. Traven, The Death Ship

“The class I belong to always has to wait and wait, stand long nights and days in long files to get a cup of coffee and a slice of bread. Everybody in the world, official or boss, takes it for granted that our sort of people have ages, of time to waste. It is different with those who have money. They can arrange everything with money. Therefore they never have to wait. We who cannot pay with cold cash have to pay with our time instead.”
― B. Traven, The Death Ship

“Do not ask questions! The only real defense civilized man has against
anybody who bothers him is to lie. There would be no lies if there were no questions.”
― B. Traven , The Death Ship

“-¿Por qué esperar al Salvador? Sálvate tú mismo, hermano, y entonces tu salvador habrá llegado.”
― B. Traven, The Rebellion of the Hanged

“Badges, to god-damned hell with badges! We have no badges. In fact, we don’t need badges. I don’t have to show you any stinking badges, you god-damned cabrón and ching’ tu madre! Come out there from that shit-hole of yours. I have to speak to you.”
― B. Traven, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE

“Tengo que hacer esas canastitas a mi manera, con canciones y trocitos de mi propia alma. Si me veo obligado a hacerlas por millares, no podré tener un pedazo del alma en cada una, ni podré poner en ellas mis canciones. Resultarían todas iguales, y eso acabaría por devorarme el corazón pedazo por pedazo. Cada una de ellas debe encerrar un trozo distinto, un cantar único de los que escucho al amanecer, cuando los pájaros comienzan a gorjear y las mariposas vienen a posarse en mis canastitas y a enseñarme los lindos colores de sus alitas para que yo me inspire. Y ellas se acercan porque gustan también de los bellos tonos que mis canastitas lucen.”
― B. Traven, Canasta de cuentos mexicanos

“The air bit into your lungs because it was filled with poisonous gas escaping from the refineries. That sting in the air which made breathing so hard and unpleasant and choked your throat constantly meant that people were making money- much money.”
― B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

“The Chief seemed not to care much about my opinion; he wanted to talk and so I let him continue. The greatest pleasure one can give people is to let them talk all they want. One is respected much more if one lets people talk instead of talking himself. No one has the least interest in hearing somebody else’s opinion. ("Midnight Call")”
― B. Traven, The Night Visitor and Other Stories

“i wonder what goes on night and day beneath the surface of a cemetery.”
― B. Traven, The Death Ship

“Then Mr. Pratt handed me a map.

The less said about this map, the better. You can put anything you like upon a map: roads, rivers, villages, towns, grasslands, water pools, mountain passes, and plenty more. Paper is patient, it won’t refuse anything; but though a river or a bridge appears on a map it doesn’t mean that you’re going to find it where it is supposed to be. (The Cattle Drive)”
― B. Traven, The Night Visitor and Other Stories

“Can the skipper sail his bucket without sailors? Or can the engineer, no matter how clever he is, build a locomotive without workers? Nevertheless, the worker has to stand with his cap in hand and beg for a job. He has to stand there like a dog about to be beaten.”
― B. Traven, The Death Ship

“Si un pobre hombre o una pobre mujer no podían ofrecerle sino sólo unos cuantos centavos, o un puerquito, o un gallo, gozaban exactamente de la misma atención que los ricos, a quienes en ocasiones había llegado a cobrar hasta veinte mil doblones de oro.”
― B. Traven, Macario

“La suya era una de las familias más pobres del pueblo, una de las más apreciadas por su honestidad y su modestia y además porque siempre son más queridas las familias pobres que las ricas.”
― B. Traven, Macario

“During my early youth I carried all my earthly goods in my pants and coat pockets, that is when I had a coat, because I had to be ready to travel at any hour no matter where I happened to be, mostly on account of merciless truant officers. Since then, having become in the meantime well-to-do, I carried all my earthly riches in that shaky cardboard box. It makes you wonderfully independent.

Even had these good men not asked for it, even had they not so highly solicited my medical knowledge, I would still have taken the medicine box along with me. This I did entirely instinctively and out of long and often very bitter experience. For it had often happened to me in the past that, when I thought of leaving my residence for only one hour, upon regaining full consciousness I discovered that I had landed on a different continent. Through such experiences one learns to become careful, so that toothbrush, shaving kit and a little pocket compass were constantly buttoned up inside my back pants pocket. How would I know where I might land if I flew away with these three nightbirds? ("Midnight Call")”
― B. Traven, The Night Visitor and Other Stories

“Anyone who is willing to work and is serious about it will certainly find a job. Only you must not go to the man who tells you this, for he has no job to offer and doesn’t know anyone who knows of a vacancy. This is exactly the reason why he gives you such generous advice, out of brotherly love, and to demonstrate how little he knows the world. Dobbs”
― B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre

“Macario nunca pegaba a su mujer.”
― B. Traven, Macario

“vio un par de pies frente a sí. Calzaban”
― B. Traven, Macario