Quotes from Thomas Mann

Hans Castorp was, for his own person, quite without arrogance; yet a larger arrogance, the pride of caste and tradition, stood written on his brow and in his sleepy-looking eyes, and voiced itself in the conviction of his own superiority, which came over him when he measured Frau Chauchat for what she was.

Order and simplification are the first steps toward mastery of a subject -- the actual enemy is the unknown.

Hans Castorp had found courage up here--if courage before the elements is defined not as a dull, level-headed relationship with them, but a conscious abandonment to them.

Man loves and honors man as long as he is not able to judge him, and desire is a product of lacking knowledge.

Es ist sicher gut, dass die Welt nur das schöne Werk, nicht auch seine Ursprünge, nicht seine Enstehungsbedingungen kennt; denn die Kenntnis der Quellen, aus denen dem Künstler Eingebung floss, würde sie oftmals verwirren, abschrecken und so die Wirkungen des Vortrefflichen aufheben.

Samo ?ovjek koji se baš nimalo ne razumije u ljubavne stvari mogao bi pomisliti da su takve dvojbe nauštrb ljubavi. Dapa?e, one su joj pravi za?in. Tek one daju ljubavi žalac strasti tako da bi se strast mogla jednostavno definirati kao ljubav koja sumnja.

Passion-means to live for life's sake but I am well aware you Germans live for the sake of experience. Passion means to forget ones self. But you do things in order to enrich yourselves.

C'è nostalgia, dentro, e malinconica invidia, appena un po' di disprezzo e una grande, casta felicità.

Ä°blis: Müzik her ne kadar Hristiyanl?k taraf?ndan kullan?l?p geliÅŸtirilse de, ayn? zamanda reddedildi ve ÅŸeytani bir alan olarak d??land?-iÅŸte görüyorsun. Müzik fevkalade teolojik bir mesele; t?pk? günah gibi, benim gibi...

Vuole credere lei che sarei orgoglioso e felice di possedere un amico tra gli uomini? Ma fino ad ora ho avuto amici solo tra demoni, farfarelli, mostri oscuri e fantasmi afasiaci, vale a dire: tra letterati.

We come out of darkness and return to darkness, with some experiences in between. But we don't experience the beginning and the end, birth and death. We are not subjectively aware of them, they exist only in the world of objective events—and that's that.

Nothing gladdens a writer more than a thought that can become pure feeling and a feeling that can become pure thought.

He may have been waiting a long while, in snow or rain, yet his joy at my final appearance knows no resentment at my faithlessness, though I have neglected him all day and brought his hopes to naught.

Entangled and besotted as he was, he no longer wished for anything else than to pursue the beloved object that inflamed him, to dream about him when he was absent and to speak amorous phrases, after the manner of lovers, to his mere shadow.

Narrative, however, has two kinds of time: first, its own real time, which like musical time defines its movement and presentation; and second, the time of its contents, which has a perspective quality that can vary widely, from a story in which the narrative's imaginary time is almost, or indeed totally coincident with its musical time, to one in which it stretches over light-years.

what time actually is--nothing less than a silent sister, a column of mercury without a scale, for the purpose of keeping people from cheating.

Malice, my dear sir, is the animating spirit of criticism; and criticism is the beginning of progress and enlightenment

Literature is the union of suffering with the instinct for form.

Der Sommer hat angefangen und schon neigt er sich dem Ende zu.

But he discovered that his thoughts and inspirations were like the intimations of a dream, which always seem inspired at the time but prove utterly shallow and useless to the waking mind.

Art, in its will to live and progress, puts on the mask of these dull-hearted personal traits in order to manifest, objectivize, and fulfill itself in them.

Você segue e segue mais adiante…e de uma caminhada como essa jamais voltará a tempo, pois você escapa ao tempo e o tempo escapa de você.

Yo no estoy acostumbrado a tomarme la vida a broma, querido marqués. La frivolidad no es lo mío, y menos aún en cuestión de travesuras; porque hay travesuras y bromas que deben tomarse muy, muy en serio…, o nunca saldrán bien. Una gran broma sólo llega a serlo cuando uno ha invertido en ella toda la seriedad del mundo.

boredom is the coldest thing in the world.