We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side.
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German writer, critic, philanthropist, Nobel laureate [Paul Thomas Mann]
Buddenbrooks, 8.2 (1902) [tr. Lowe-Porter (1924)]
Quotations by:
Mann, Thomas
Language is civilization itself. The Word, even the most contradictory word, binds us together. Wordlessness isolates.
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German writer, critic, philanthropist, Nobel laureate [Paul Thomas Mann]
The Magic Mountain [Der Zauberberg], Part 6, “A Good Soldier” (1924) [tr. Woods]
(Source)
Alt. trans.: "Speech is civilization itself. The word, even the most contradictory word, preserves contact -- it is silence which isolates." [tr. Lowe-Porter]
A man’s dying is more the survivors’ affair than his own.
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German writer, critic, philanthropist, Nobel laureate [Paul Thomas Mann]
The Magic Mountain (1924)
If you are possessed by an idea, you find it expressed everywhere, you even smell it.
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German writer, critic, philanthropist, Nobel laureate [Paul Thomas Mann]
Tonio Kröger (1903)
Alt. trans. [B. Morgan]: "It is strange. If an idea gains control of you, you will find it expressed everywhere, you will actually smell it in the wind."
Toward the end of the book (the time is 1914) Demian says to his friend Sinclair: “… The new is beginning and for those who cling to the old the new will be horrible. What will you do?” The right answer would be: “Assist the new without sacrificing the old.”
Thomas Mann (1875-1955) German writer, critic, philanthropist, Nobel laureate [Paul Thomas Mann]
Introduction (1947) to Hermann Hesse, Demian: The Story of Emile Sinclair’s Youth (1919) [tr. Roloff and Lebeck (1965)]