He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word. Thomas Mann More Quotes by Thomas Mann More Quotes From Thomas Mann Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought - these are the artist's highest joy. Thomas Mann artistfeelingsjoy He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer. Thomas Mann inferiorssuffering No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself. Thomas Mann politicaldiscoverymen Even in a personal sense, after all, art is an intensified life. By art one is more deeply satisfied and more rapidly used up. It engraves on the countenance of its servant the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventures, and even if he has outwardly existed in cloistral tranquility, it leads in the long term to overfastidiousness, over-refinement, nervous fatigue and overstimulation, such as can seldom result from a life of the most extravagant passions and pleasures. Thomas Mann passionadventureart Isn't it grand, isn't it good, that language has only one word for everything we associate with love - from utter sanctity to the most fleshly lust? The result is perfect clarity in ambiguity, for love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even at its most fleshly. Love is always simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion; love is our sympathy with organic life. Thomas Mann passionperfectlove Is not life in itself a thing of goodness, irrespective of whether the course it takes for us can be called a 'happy' one? Thomas Mann coursesgoodness A lonely, quiet person has observations and experiences that are at once both more indistinct and more penetrating than those of one more gregarious; his thoughts are weightier, stranger, and never without a tinge of sadness. . . . Loneliness fosters that which is original, daringly and bewilderingly beautiful, poetic. But loneliness also fosters that which is perverse, incongruous, absurd, forbidden. Thomas Mann lonelylonelinessbeautiful People's behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives. Thomas Mann educationinspirationalthinking 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? Thomas Mann artistsimplelying Technology and comfort - having those, people speak of culture, but do not have it. Thomas Mann technologyculturepeople One has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual. Thomas Mann stupidclevermen 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. Thomas Mann sadnessadventuremen 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 endurancesimplepositive A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries. Thomas Mann individualconsciousnessmen There is only one real misfortune: to forfeit one's own good opinion of oneself. Lose your complacency, once betray your own self-contempt and the world will unhesitatingly endorse it. Thomas Mann respectrealself Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. Thomas Mann hourseternitytime Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily - no hourly - and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither greeting nor addressing each other, whether out of etiquette or their own whim. Thomas Mann ticklishsightpeople Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden. Thomas Mann originalityabsurdsolitude What a wonderful phenomenon it is, carefully considered, when the human eye, that jewel of organic structures, concentrates its moist brilliance on another human creature! Thomas Mann eyejewelswonderful We do not fear being called meticulous, inclining as we do to the view that only the exhaustive can be truly interesting. Thomas Mann meticulousviewsinteresting
