Quotessence
Home / Authors / Robert Musil
Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenWorldFormPeopleSoulArtDoePersonsRealityReasonStillsActionGeniusIntellectualLifeWantAverageIdeasIfsLiterature

Famous Robert Musil Quotes

“What is it you do, then? I'll tell you: You leave out whatever doesn't suit you. As the author himself has done before you. Just as you leave things out of your dreams and fantasies. By leaving things out, we bring beauty and excitement into the world. We evidently handle our reality by effecting some sort of compromise with it, an in-between state where the emotions prevent each other from reaching their fullest intensity, graying the colors somewhat. Children who haven't yet reached that point of control are both happier and unhappier than adults who have. And yes, stupid people also leave things out, which is why ignorance is bliss. So I propose, to begin with, that we try to love each other as if we were characters in a novel who have met in the pages of a book. Let's in any case leave off all the fatty tissue that plumps up reality.”

LifeRealityInspirationLifestyleWorldviews
Book:The Man Without Qualities: Volume I
Create image

“And since the possession of qualities presupposes that one takes a certain pleasure in their reality, all this gives us a glimpse of how it may all of a sudden happen to someone who cannot summon up any sense of reality — even in relation to himself — that one day he appears to himself as a man without qualities.”

MenGivingMayRealityHappensCertainPleasureQualityOne DayRelationPossessionGlimpse
Book:The Man Without Qualities: A sort of introduction. The like of it now happens (I)
Create image