Quotes by Thomas Mann

The accouterments of life were so rich and varied, so elaborated, that almost no place at all was left for life itself. Each and every accessory was so costly and beautiful that it had an existence above and beyond the purpose it was meant to serve – confusing the observer and absorbing attention.

They walked, and the long waves rolled and murmured rhythmically beside them; the fresh salty wind blew free and unobstructed in their faces, wrapped itself around their ears, and made them feel slightly numb and deliciously dizzy. They walked along in that wide, peaceful, whispering hush of the sea that gives every sound, near or far, some mysterious importance.

What they, in their innocence, cannot comprehend is that a properly constituted, healthy, decent man never writes, acts, or composes.

I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.

The perishableness of life...imparts value, dignity, interest to life.

One could say that someone who does nothing but wait is like a glutton whose digestive system processes great masses of food without extracting any useful nourishment. One could go further and say that just as undigested food does not strengthen a man, time spent in waiting does not age him.

But the boredom of Frau Spatz had by now reached that pitch where it distorts the countenance of man, makes the eyes protrude from the head, and lends the features a corpselike and terrifying aspect. More than that, this music acted on the nerves that controlled her digestion, producing in her dyspeptic organism such malaise that she was really afraid she would have an attack.

But even those five-and-forty minutes were too long, the bored me --and boredom is the coldest thing in the world.

[Men] act in response to an outward situation, and on being presented with an opportunity to conform to a pattern. If the pattern gives licence to cruelty, so much the better. They take advantage of the licence so thoughtlessly, so thoroughly, that it becomes perfectly clear: the generality of mankind are only waiting for the chance, only waiting for outward circumstance to sanction brutality and allow them to be cruel and brutal to their hearts content.

Speech is civilization itself.

A mans dying is more the survivors affair than his own.

Time cools time clarifies no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.

Habituation is a falling asleep or fatiguing of the sense of time which explains why young years pass slowly while later life flings itself faster and faster upon its course.

If you are possessed by an idea you find it expressed everywhere you even smell it.

It is love not reason that is stronger than death.

He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.

A human being who is first of all an invalid is all body therein lies his inhumanity and his debasement.

Human reason needs only to will more strongly than fate and she is fate.

What the collective age wants allows and approves is the perpetual holiday from the self.

No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.