“For to be poised against fatality, to meet adverse conditions gracefully, is more than simple endurance; it is an act of aggression, a positive triumph.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: positive
Tags: positive, Thomas Mann
Tag: Thomas Mann
Time has no divisions to mark its
“Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: time
Tags: time, Thomas Mann
An art whose medium is language will
“An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: art
Tags: art, Thomas Mann
Solitude gives birth to the original in
“Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: poetry
Tags: poetry, Thomas Mann
War is only a cowardly escape from
“War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: war
Tags: war, Thomas Mann
Respectable means rich, and decent means poor.
“Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I heard my family called decent.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: family
Tags: family, Thomas Mann
A harmful truth is better than a
“A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: truth
Tags: truth, Thomas Mann
All interest in disease and death is
“All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: death
Tags: death, Thomas Mann
It is a strange fact that freedom
“It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: equality
Tags: equality, Thomas Mann
Solitude gives birth to the original in
“Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: beauty
Tags: beauty, Thomas Mann
For I must tell you that we
“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.”
— Thomas Mann
Author: Thomas Mann
Category: beauty
Tags: beauty, Thomas Mann