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He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.

Thomas Mann

Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?
THOMAS MANN

Change Magic Thinking Vehicle Word
In books we never find anything but ourselves. Strangely enough, that always gives us great pleasure, and we say the author is a genius.
THOMAS MANN

Author Book Enough Genius Greatness Happiness Strange
Innate in nearly every artistic nature is a wanton, treacherous penchant for accepting injustice when it creates beauty and showing sympathy for and paying homage to aristocratic privilege.
THOMAS MANN

Acceptance Artist Injustice Nature Privilege
Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous – to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.
THOMAS MANN

Beautiful Born Original Pervert Poetry
Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.
THOMAS MANN

Crime Evil One Liner Tolerance
Often I have thought of the day when I gazed for the first time at the sea. The sea is vast, the sea is wide, my eyes roved far and wide and longed to be free. But there was the horizon. Why a horizon, when I wanted the infinite from life?
THOMAS MANN

Infinite Life Sea Thinking Time
Yes, they are carnal, both of them, love and death, and therein lies their terror and their great magic!
THOMAS MANN

Death Greatness Love Magic
A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
THOMAS MANN

Difficult People Writing
For the myth is the foundation of life; it is the timeless schema, the pious formula into which life flows when it reproduces its traits out of the unconscious.
THOMAS MANN

Conscious Flow Foundation Life Reproduction Time
This was love at first sight, love everlasting: a feeling unknown, unhoped for, unexpected–in so far as it could be a matter of conscious awareness; it took entire possession of him, and he understood, with joyous amazement, that this was for life.
THOMAS MANN

Expectation Feeling Joy Life Love Possession Sight Understand Unknown
Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts.
THOMAS MANN

Kind Love Reason Thinking
He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.
THOMAS MANN

Himself Inferior Love Suffering
A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.
THOMAS MANN

Greatness Opposite Truth
People’s behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives.
THOMAS MANN

Goal Motive Need People Yourself
He thought what a fine thing it was that people made music all over the world, even in the strangest settings – probably even on polar expeditions.
THOMAS MANN

Expedition Music People Thinking World
Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject.
THOMAS MANN

Order Simplify Subject
The Freudian theory is one of the most important foundation stones for an edifice to be built by future generations, the dwelling of a freer and wiser humanity.
THOMAS MANN

Foundation Humanity Important Theory Wisdom
What our age needs, what it demands, what it will create for itself, is—terror.
THOMAS MANN

Age Creation Demand Terror
Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.
THOMAS MANN

Astonish Beautiful Original Poetry Solitude Weird
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

Care Creature Eyes Human Phenomenon Structure Wonderful
Speech is civilization itself.
THOMAS MANN

Civilization One Liner Speech
Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.
THOMAS MANN

Art Life Pour Spirit
What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.
THOMAS MANN

History Ideas Intellect Life Poison
Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion.
THOMAS MANN

Admire Animal Companion
Every reasonable human being should be a moderate Socialist.
THOMAS MANN

Human Reason Social
A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.
THOMAS MANN

Better Harm Lying Truth
Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours.
THOMAS MANN

Maintain Quite Time

He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.

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He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.

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Popular Authors

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