Quotes from Thomas Mann

For I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide.

A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.

It's hard to keep going when it seems like you're not getting anywhere, but you'll never succeed if you stop. Those of us with a dream that seems so far from being realized must remember that the road is long, but only those who stay on the path will reach their destination.

Pues el hombre ama y respeta al hombre mientras no se halla en condiciones de juzgarlo, y el deseo vehemente es el resultado de un conocimiento imperfecto

How can I free myself from sexuality? Eat nothing but rice?

when life still hesitates to touch us, when neither duty nor guilt dares lay a hand upon us

The perishableness of life...imparts value, dignity, interest to life.

But sometimes a person begins with opinions and judgments and valid criticisms, but then things creep in that have nothing to do with forming opinions, and then it's all over with strict logic, and what you end up with is an absurd world republic and beautiful style.

He was simply not a "hero", which is to say, he did not let his relationship with the man be determined by the woman.

The dilemma, my dear sir, the tragedy, begins where nature has been cruel enough to split the personality, to shatter its harmony by imprisoning a noble and ardent spirit within a body not fit for the stresses of life. Have you heard of Leopardi, Engineer, or you, Lieutenant? An unhappy poet of my own land, a crippled, ailing man, born with a great soul, which his sufferings were constantly humiliating and dragging down into the depths of irony—its lamentations rend the heart to hear.

On a personal level, too, art is life intensified: it delights more deeply, consumes more rapidly; it engraves the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventure on the countenance of its servant and in the long run, for all the monastic calm of his external existence, leads to self-indulgence, overrefinement, lethargy, and a restless curiosity that a lifetime of wild passions and pleasures could scarcely engender.

Men do not know why they award fame to one work of art rather than another. Without being in the faintest connoisseurs, they think to justify the warmth of their commendations by discovering it in a hundred virtues, whereas the real ground of their applause is inexplicable--it is sumpathy.

This old, folkish layer survives in us all, and to speak as I really think, I do not consider religion the most adequate means of keeping it under lock and key. For that, literature alone avails, humanistic science, the ideal of the free and beautiful human being.

Ako je lutao, bilo je to zato, što za neke ljude uopšte nema pravog puta. Kad bi ga pitali, šta zapravo kani postati, davao bi razli?ite odgovore, jer je obi?avao re?i ( a bio je to ve? i napisao), da nosi u sebi mogu?nosti za hiljadu na?ina života, zajedno s potajnom svesti, da su to zapravo same nemogu?nosti.

?udno je to. Kad ?oveka obuzme neka misao, onda je nalazi svuda, ?ak je i miriše u vetru.

A human being lives out not only his personal life as an individual, but also, consciously or subconsciously, the lives of his epoch and his contemporaries

Sì: vi sono alcuni che necessariamente smarriscono la strada, poiché per loro non esiste una strada giusta.

Soll man die Segel streichen und dem Erlebnis ausweichen, sobald es nicht vollkommen danach angetan ist, Heiterkeit und Vertrauen zu erzeugen? Soll man 'abreisen', wenn das Leben sich ein bisschen unheimlich, nicht ganz geheuer oder etwas peinlich und kränkend anlässt? Nein doch, man soll bleiben, soll sich das ansehen und sich dem aussetzen, gerade dabei gibt es vielleicht etwas zu lernen.

Thoughts come c.early while one walks.

For he used to say...that knowledge of the soul would unfailingly make us melancholy if the pleasures of expression did not keep us alert and of good cheer.

a secret and ardent stirring within the frozen chastity of the universal.

Only incorrigible bohemians find it boring or laughable when a man of talent outgrows the libertine chrysalis stage and begins to perceive and express the dignity of the intellect, adopting the courtly ways of a solitude replete with bitter suffering and inner battles though eventually gaining a position of power and honor among men.

Or was he merely a mollycoddled favorite, enjoying capriciously prejudiced love? Schenback was inclined to believe the latter. Inborn in nearly every artist's nature is a voluptuous, treacherous tendency to accept the injustice if it creates beauty and to grant sympathy and homage to aristocratic preferences.

La belleza engendra pudor