Claim profile

Karel Čapek

Czech writer (1890–1938)

  • Fame71.9
  • Momentum8.6
  • Wikipedia19.5K
Source-basedStable
Lived 1890–1938, aged 48
WritersWriter / Author
  • Wikipedia
    83 languages
    Cross-language footprint
  • Era
    1890–1938
    Aged 48
  • Known for
    Krakatit
    1948
Summary
Updated 2026-09-08

He gave the world the word "robot" in a 1920 play about manufactured workers, then spent the rest of his life warning against the ideologies that would mechanize human beings in earnest.

Biography

About

Karel Čapek was born in Bohemia on 9 January 1890 and became a Czech writer, playwright, critic and journalist shaped by American pragmatic liberalism. His 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) introduced "robot" to global vocabulary, and his 1936 novel War with the Newts extended his science fiction into darker territory. He campaigned for free expression and opposed both fascism and communism as they rose across Europe, writing politically charged works that addressed the social turmoil directly. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature seven times, he never received it, though the…

Voice

In their own words

Sourced, dated quotes from Karel Čapek

Karel Čapek
said
I don’t know whether we have souls or not; but there are immortal things within us, and one of them is this instinctive desire for justice.
— "An Ordinary Murder" (Stories from the Second Pocket, 1932)
Karel Čapek
said
Look, justice has to be as unquestioned as the multiplication tables.
— Sgt. Bartosek, in "Šlépeje" ["Footprints"] (1929) as translated by Norma Comrada, in Toward the Radical Center: A Karel Čapek Reader
Karel Čapek
said
Great god of the Ants, thou hast granted victory to thy servants. I appoint thee honorary Colonel.
— Pictures from the Insects' Life (1922), as translated in 'And so ad infinitum (The Life of the Insects) : An Entomological Review in Three
Karel Čapek
said
My dear Miss Glory, Robots are not people. They are mechanically more perfect than we are, they have an astounding intellectual capacity, but they have no soul.
— R.U.R. (1920)
Karel Čapek
said
Dear Miss Glory, we've already had at least a hundred saviors and prophets here. Every boat brings another one.
— R.U.R. (1920)
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Where to find them

Platforms

By the numbers

Score breakdown

The six component signals behind the Fame score, and their ranks across the leaderboards.

Fame
Stable
71.9
Composite of search demand, mentions, audience & graph footprint.
Score components
Momentum8.6
Historical24.7
Now attention31.7
Source confidence65.0
Completeness65.0
Global rank
—
Country rank
—
Category rank
—
Receipts

Sources