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In the Penal Colony - Bilingual quotes that celebrate the beauty of language, showcasing meaningful expressions in two unique perspectives.

In the Penal Colony - Bilingual quotes that celebrate the beauty of language, showcasing meaningful expressions in two unique perspectives.

"In the Penal Colony," a short story by Franz Kafka, explores themes of punishment and justice within a bleak, dystopian setting. It follows a traveler who visits a remote penal colony where an elaborate execution device is used to enforce punishment on condemned prisoners. The narrative presents the machine's operation, which is designed to mark the guilty party with the crime they committed, reflecting the penal system's obsession with both guilt and justice.

The story features a conversation between the traveler and the officer in charge of the execution apparatus, who passionately describes its functions and the philosophy behind the form of justice it embodies. The officer is deeply committed to the machine's workings, viewing it as an integral part of the colony's cultural identity, but his enthusiasm starkly contrasts with the traveler's moral objections and discomfort with the inhumane practices.

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Taffy. He thinks about taffy. He thinks it would take his teeth out now, but he would eat it anyhow, if it meant eating it with her.
by Mitch Albom
All our human endeavours are like that, she reflected, and it is only because we are too ignorant to realize it, or are too forgetful to remember it, that we have the confidence to build something that is meant to last.
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The value of money is subjective, depending on age. At the age of one, one multiplies the actual sum by 145,000, making one pound seem like 145,000 pounds to a one-year-old. At seven – Bertie's age – the multiplier is 24, so that five pounds seems like 120 pounds. At the age of twenty four, five pounds is five pounds; at forty five it is divided by 5, so that it seems like one pound and one pound seems like twenty pence. {All figures courtesy of Scottish Government Advice Leaflet: Handling your Money.}
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In fact, none of us knows how he ever managed to get his LLB in the first place. Maybe they're putting law degrees in cornflakes boxes these days.
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Look, if you say that science will eventually prove there is no God, on that I must differ. No matter how small they take it back, to a tadpole, to an atom, there is always something they can't explain, something that created it all at the end of the search. And no matter how far they try to go the other way – to extend life, play around with the genes, clone this, clone that, live to one hundred and fifty – at some point, life is over. And then what happens? When the life comes to an end? I shrugged. You see? He leaned back. He smiled. When you come to the end, that's where God begins.
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Small towns are like metronomes; with the slightest flick, the beat changes.
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You say you should have died instead of me. But during my time on earth, people died instead of me, too. It happens every day. When lightning strikes a minute after you are gone, or an airplane crashes that you might have been on. When your colleague falls ill and you do not. We think such things are random. But there is a balance to it all. One withers, another grows. Birth and death are part of a whole.
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Where there's bluster, thinks Luisa, there's duplicity
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But an ink brush, she thinks, is a skeleton key for a prisoner's mind.
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