Top 10 Quotes & Sayings by B. Traven

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a German novelist B. Traven.

Last updated on December 3, 2024.

B. Traven was the pen name of a presumably German novelist, whose real name, nationality, date and place of birth and details of biography are all subject to dispute. One certainty about Traven's life is that he lived for years in Mexico, where the majority of his fiction is also set—including The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1927), the film adaptation of which won three Academy Awards in 1948.

German - Novelist | February 23, 1882 - March 26, 1969

Source: Wikipedia

The treasure which you think not worth taking trouble and pains to find, this alone is the real treasure you are longing for all your life. The glittering treasure you are hunting for day and night lies buried on the other side of that hill yonder.

B. Traven

My personal history would not be disappointing to readers, but it is my own affair which I want to keep to myself. I am in fact in no way more important than is the typesetter for my books, the man who works the mill; no more important than the man who binds my books and the woman who wraps them and the scrubwoman who cleans up the office.

B. Traven

If you do not wish to be lied to, do not ask questions! The only real defence civilized man has against anybody who bothers him is to lie. There would be no lies if there were no questions.

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 creative person should have no other biography than his works.

B. Traven

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

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 deplorable thing is that the people who were tortured yesterday, torture today.

B. Traven

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

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

Top 10 Quotes & Sayings by B. Traven

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