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Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quotes

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Famous Thomas Mann Quotes

“Nothing is more curious and awkward than the relationship of two people who only know each other with their eyes — who meet and observe each other daily, even hourly and who keep up the impression of disinterest either because of morals or because of a mental abnormality. Between them there is listlessness and pent-up curiosity, the hysteria of an unsatisfied, unnaturally suppressed need for communion and also a kind of tense respect. Because man loves and honors man as long as he is not able to judge him, and desire is a product of lacking knowledge.”

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Author:Thomas Mann
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“The observations and encounters of a devotee of solitude and silence are at once less distinct and more penetrating than those of the sociable man; his thoughts are weightier, stranger, and never without a tinge of sadness. Images and perceptions which might otherwise be easily dispelled by a glance, a laugh, an exchange of comments, concern him unduly, they sink into mute depths, take on significance, become experiences, adventures, emotions.”

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Book:Death in Venice, Tonio Kroger, and Other Writings: Thomas Mann
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“There were profound reasons for his attachment to the sea: he loved it because as a hardworking artist he needed rest, needed to escape from the demanding complexity of phenomena and lie hidden on the bosom of the simple and tremendous; because of a forbidden longing deep within him that ran quite contrary to his life's task and was for that very reason seductive, a longing for the unarticulated and immeasurable, for eternity, for nothingness. To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection?”

MenReasonFormLyingDesireArtistSimpleSeaArmsNeededCreatingPerfectionTasksEternityLongingExcellenceProfoundContraryRanComplexityAttachmentNothingnessForbiddenBosomsSeductiveDeep WithinHardworking
Author:Thomas Mann
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“To allow only the kind of art that the average man understands is the worst small-mindedness and the murder of mind and spirit. It is my conviction that the intellect can be certain that in doing what most disconcerts the crowd, in pursuing the most daring, unconventional advances and explorations, it will in some highly indirect fashion serve man - and in the long run, all men.”

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Author:Thomas Mann
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“The observations and encounters of a solitary, taciturn man are vaguer and at the same times more intense than those of a sociable man; his thoughts are deeper, odder and never without a touch of sadness. Images and perceptions that could be dismissed with a glance, a laugh, an exchange of opinions, occupy him unduly, become more intense in the silence, become significant, become an experience, an adventure, an emotion. Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportionate, the absurd and the forbidden.”

MenEmotionSilenceOpinionLaughingSadnessProduceAdventureSolitudePerceptionDeeperSignificantIntenseAbsurdObservationEncountersOriginalitySolitaryGlancesForbiddenAstonishingSociablePerversenessTaciturnBeauty Poetry
Book:Death in Venice & A Man and His Dog: A Dual-Language Book
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