Quotes from Elias Canetti

WyobraziÅ' sobie Å›lady swoich palców na jej pyzatym, tÅ'ustym, lÅ›niÄ…cym policzku. Ale z jakiej racji jeden policzek miaÅ'by by? uprzywilejowany. Nale?aÅ'oby bi? obiema rÄ™kami naraz. JeÅ›li nie utrafi, czerwone prÄ™gi bÄ™dÄ… z jednej strony wy?ej, z drugiej ni?ej. To byÅ'oby brzydkie. Studium chiÅ"skiej sztuki wyrobiÅ'o w nim namiÄ™tne zamiÅ'owanie do symetrii.

Since the death of his daughter, a consumptive, he had not thrashed a woman; he lived alone.

There is nothing more base than a certain loathing for the oppressed that goes to great lengths to justify their downtrodden state by pointing to their shortcomings. Not even great and lofty philosophers are entirely free of this failing.

As soon as a man has surrendered himself to the crowd, he ceases to fear its touch.

Literality in satire is the condemnation by quotation.

Time is a continuum whence there is one escape only. By closing the eyes to it from time to time, it is possible to splinter it into those fragments with which alone we are familiar.

Every class has pupils who mimic the teachers particularly well and perform for their classmates; a class without such teacher-mimics would have something lifeless about it.

Andavo già a scuola da qualche mese, quando accadde una cosa solenne ed eccitante che determinò tutta la mia successiva esistenza. Mio padre mi portò un libro.

Her somewhat overly round head was wedged deep within her shoulders on a short body; it sat right upon it, as though there had never been such a thing as a neck, what a superfluous contraption.

If anyone was ever cognizant of the need and function of 'litanies', it was Kafka.

Tutti i pregiudizi sono determinati da altri pregiudizi, e i più frequenti sono quelli che nascono dai loro opposti.

He [Kafka] did not have for his private and interior processes that disregard which distinguishes insignificant writers from writers of imagination. A person who thinks that he is empowered to separate his inner world from the outer one has no inner world from which something might be separable.

Any life is laughable if one knows it well enough. It is something serious and terrible if one knows it even better.

Un seul beau son est plus beau qu'un long parler.

The dead man has no place in Parliament; he cannot bequeath his membership and he can never know for certain who will succeed him after his death.

The sorrows of the world are, because we live too little in the future.

It is those who devote themselves to killing who have power.

He would however permit himself to relieve the Past of the absurd feminine gender with which the Germans have credited it. That the Germans should provide their finest achievements, those abstract ideas, with feminine articles is one of those incomprehensible barbarisms by which they nullify their own merits. He would in future sanctify everything connected with God with a masculine affix.

Le nostre paure non vanno mai perdute, anche se i loro nascondigli sono misteriosi. Forse, di tutte le cose del mondo, nulla si evolve e si trasforma meno della paura. Quando penso ai miei primi anni, per prima cosa ritrovo le paure di cui essi abbondarono in maniera inesauribile. Molte le ritrovo soltanto ora, mentre in altre, che non troverò mai, risiede presumibilmente il segreto che mi fa desiderare una vita interminabile.

No child, not even the most ordinary, forgets or forgives a single one of the commands inflicted on it.

If gazelles had a religion and the lion was their god they could, in order to appease his appetite, voluntarily surrender one of their number to him. This is exactly what happens among men: religious sacrifice springs from a state of crowd fear. It serves to halt the pursuit and, for a while, stil the hunger of the hostile power.

We always overrate the man who stands.

Do?i ?e vreme kad ?e ljudi svoja ?ula prekovati u se?anje, a sve vreme u prošlost. Do?i ?e vreme kad ?e jedna jedina prošlost obuhvatiti sve ljude, kad ne?e biti ništa osim te prošlosti, kad ?e svako verovati: u prošlost.

Mereu, în constelaÈ›iile schimb?toare ale haitei, în dansurile È™i în tr?s?turile ei, individul se va afla la margine. Va fi în?untru È™i apoi iar??i la margine, la margine È™i iar??i în?untru. Dac? haita formeaz? un cerc în jurul focului, el va avea vecini în dreapta È™i în stânga, dar spatele-i este liber; spatele f?r? ap?rare este expus s?lb?ticiei.