black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither, and I suffer in consequence. You artists call me a bourgeois, and the bourgeois try to arrest me…I don’t know which makes me feel worse.

Thomas Mann

Order and simplification are the first steps toward the mastery of a subject.
THOMAS MANN

Order Simplify Subject
A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.
THOMAS MANN

Greatness Opposite Truth
Stupid – well, there are so many kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.
THOMAS MANN

Clever Kind Smart Stupidity Worst
He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.
THOMAS MANN

Average Honor Word
He took in the squeaky music, the vulgar and pining melodies, because passion immobilizes good taste and seriously considers what soberly would be thought of as funny and to be resented.
THOMAS MANN

Funny Music Passion Serious Vulgar
I don’t think anyone is thinking long-term now.
THOMAS MANN

Goal Present Thinking
What pleases the public is lively and vivid delineation which makes no demands on the intellect; but passionate and absolutist youth can only be enthralled by a problem.
THOMAS MANN

Demand Live Passion Problem Public Youth
Everything is politics.
THOMAS MANN

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

Art Life Pour Spirit
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
Distance in a straight line has no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere.
THOMAS MANN

Deep Distance Mystery Shape
I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither, and I suffer in consequence. You artists call me a bourgeois, and the bourgeois try to arrest me…I don’t know which makes me feel worse.
THOMAS MANN

Arrest Feeling Home Stand Suffering World Worst
A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.
THOMAS MANN

Better Harm Lying Truth
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

Clever Health Ideas Man Perfection Refine Unusual
Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?
THOMAS MANN

Change Magic Thinking Vehicle Word

I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither, and I suffer in consequence. You artists call me a bourgeois, and the bourgeois try to arrest me…I don’t know which makes me feel worse.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither, and I suffer in consequence. You artists call me a bourgeois, and the bourgeois try to arrest me…I don’t know which makes me feel worse.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Thomas Mann Quotes