Quotes from Thomas Mann

Yes, like watching someone flog a dead horse into obedience," Settembrini scoffed; to which Naphta replied that since for our sin God had visited our bodies with the gruesome ignominy of rot and decay, there was no indignity in the same body's receiving an occasional beating—which immediately brought them to the topic of cremation.

All the days are nothing but the same day repeating itself—or rather, since it is always the same day, it is incorrect to speak of repetition; a continuous present, an identity, an everlastingness—such words as these would better convey the idea.

how it must be when one is finally free of all the pressures honor brings and one can endlessly enjoy the unbounded advantages of disgrace—and

Pues cuando los ojos hablan tutean, aunque los labios no hayan pronunciado todavía un .

He always knows instantly whether I have chosen the wild or the world, directly I get outside the door.

Miss von Osterloh had looked through it once during an idle fifteen minutes and pronunce it quite sophisticated, which veredict was her euphemism for inhumanly boring.

Hans Castorp barely attended. His mouth was open, for he could not have breathed through his nose without sniffing; he felt with dull discomfort that his heart was hammering out of time with the music; and with this combined sense of discord and disorder he was about to doze off

Insults must be done with intention, or they are not insults.

Il vivait vite comme un mécanisme d'horloge qui se défend, il franchissait au galop les âges qu'il ne lui était pas accordé d'atteindre dans le temps, et durant les dernières vingt-quatre heures, il devint un vieillard.

Mais qu'était-ce que l'humanisme ? C'était l'amour des hommes, ce n'était pas autre chose, et par là même l'humanisme était aussi une politique, une attitude de révolte contre tout ce qui souille et déshonore l'idée de l'homme.

A lonely, quiet person has observations and experiences that are at once both more indistinct and more penetrating than those of one more gregarious; his thoughts are weightier, stranger, and never without a tinge of sadness. Images and perceptions that others might shrug off with a glance, a laugh, or a brief conversation occupy him unduly, become profound in his silence, become significant, become experience, adventure, emotion.

It would of course be childish to think that the science of engineering, the rules of mechanics, had found application to organic nature;

We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side

Carlyle opina que «es absurdo impartir la bendición a las revoluciones o maldecirlas, pero es importante estudiarlas; es enojoso arrastrarse detrás de ellas, acompañándolas por el fango y la inmundicia; peligroso servirlas; inútil luchar contra ellas; pero es glorioso esparcir, en medio de las ruinas, semillas de fe e ideas morales que contribuyan a la reedificación».

but just as little might one say that they had been derived from organic nature.

car ce que l'on savait et que l'on a pensé tout en peignant joue un rôle. Cela vous guide la main et cela produit son effet, ca y est et ça n'y est pas ; et c'est là ce qui rend le tout éloquent.

It was simply that the mechanical laws found themselves repeated and corroborated in nature.

Dobrze wiemy, ?e odzwyczajenie siÄ™ i przyzwyczajenie do czegos nowego jest jedynym Å›rodkiem, który utrzymuje nasze ?ycie, odÅ›wie?a nasz zmysÅ' czasu -- jedynym, dziÄ™ki któremu mo?emy odmÅ'odzi?, wzmocni?, zwolni? nasze prze?ywanie czasu i tym samym odnowi? nasze poczucie ?ycia w ogóle.

Everything is human. The Spaniard's fear of God, his humility, his solemnity, his scrupulous austerity is a very worthy form of humanity

De même qu'un aliment non digéré ne fortifie pas un homme, de même le temps que l'on a passé à attendre ne le vieillit pas.

What, she's French?' he repeats. And what do you suppose this tall dragoon says next?—'An émigrée, you mean?' he says. 'But then she must be an enemy of philosophy!

The policy are to be commended.' Aschenbach replied, and after a brief exchange of meteorological observations the manager excused himself.

Auch persönlich genommen ist ja die Kunst ein erhöhtes Leben. Sie beglückt tiefer, sie verzehrt rascher.

We, when we sow the seeds of doubt deeper than the most up-to-date and modish free-thought has ever dreamed of doing, we well know what we are about. Only out of radical skepsis, out of moral chaos, can the Absolute spring, the anointed Terror of which the time has need.