Have we not huddled in bunkers, while some premonition of tomorrow hung in the air and a comrade started singing? Oh, it felt so melancholy! And it was kitsch. Robert Musil More Quotes by Robert Musil More Quotes From Robert Musil Mathematics is the bold luxury of pure reason, one of the few that remain today. Robert Musil luxury reason today Ideology is: intellectual ordering of the feelings; an objective connection among them that makes the subjective connection easier. Robert Musil connections intellectual feelings The truth is not a crystal that can be slipped into one's pocket, but an endless current into which one falls headlong. Robert Musil pockets learning fall That the will of the people can be established by voting for democrats is, of course, a delusion. Yet when considering a non-threatening system for deciding between diverse interests, then voting, of course, can be regarded as a humane and civilized process. Robert Musil voting democracy people A man who wants the truth becomes a scientist; a man who wants to give free play to his subjectivity may become a writer; but what should a man do who wants something in between? Robert Musil want-something play men The thought came to me that all one loves in art becomes beautiful. Beauty is nothing but the expression of the fact that something is being loved. Only thus could she be defined. Robert Musil expression beautiful art A man can't be angry at his own time without suffering some damage. Robert Musil damage suffering men Each person is a graveyard of his thoughts. They are most beautiful for us in the moment of their birth; later we can often sense a deep pain that they leave us indifferent where earlier they enchanted us. Robert Musil birth pain beautiful We sometimes have a flash of understanding that amounts to the insight of genius, and yet it slowly withers, even in our hands - like a flower. The form remains, but the colours and the fragrance are gone. Robert Musil understanding flower hands the restricting of intellectual and spiritual needs to the mania of progress Robert Musil progress intellectual spiritual There is, in short, no great idea that stupidity could not put to its own uses [....] The truth by comparison, has only one appearance and only one path, and is always at a disadvantage. Robert Musil stupidity use ideas ...love must be regarded as one of the religious and dangerous experiences, because it lifts people out of the arms of reason and sets them afloat with no ground under their feet. Robert Musil religious feet people [...] a number of flawed individuals can often add up to a brilliant social unit. Robert Musil brilliant numbers add You proclaim that one should die for the highest virtues, because you take it for granted that nobody's been living for them, not even for a single hour. Robert Musil granted hours virtue Writing [for the novelist] is not an activity, but a condition. That is why one simply can't resume the work when one has a job and a free half-day. Reading is the conveyance of this condition. Robert Musil reading writing jobs He who is allowed to do as he likes will soon run his head into a brick wall out of sheer frustration. Robert Musil wall freedom running Clothes, when abstracted from the flow of present time and their transmogrifying function on the human body, and seen as forms in themselves, are strange tubes and excrescences worthy of being classed with such facial decorations as the ring through the nose or the lip-stretching disk. But how enchanting they become when seen togetherwith the qualities they bestow on their wearer! What happens then is no less than the infusion, into some tangled lines on a piece of paper, of the meaning of a great word. Robert Musil tangled clothes quality ... all professional ideologies are high-minded. Hunters, for instance, would not dream of calling themselves the butchers of the woods. Robert Musil hunters woods dream We do not have too much intellect and too little soul, but too little intellect in matters of the soul. Robert Musil soul matter littles Only in the most unusual cases is it useful to determine whether a book is good or bad; for it is just as rare for it to be one or the other. It is usually both. Robert Musil unusual cases book
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