"Le corps, lamour, la mort, ces trois ne font quun. Car le corps, cest la maladie et la volupté, et cest lui qui fait la mort, oui, ils sont charnels tous deux, lamour et la mort, et voilà leur terreur et leur grande magie!"
Paul Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual. His analysis and critique of the European and German soul used modernized versions of German and Biblical stor
"What was it that drove these thousands into the arms of his art — what but the blissfully sensuous, searing, sense-consuming, intoxicating, hypnotically caressing, heavily upholstered — in a word, the luxurious quality of his music?"
"It is probable that fascism will continue to prefer this kind of war to actual open warfare as long as possible, for a real war would soon reveal the important role which lies and deception play in the “totalitarian state.”"
"Human reason needs only to will more strongly than fate, and she is fate."
"But he would “stay the course” — it was his favorite motto."
"Here and there, among a thousand other peddlers, are slyly hissing dealers who urge you to come along with them to allegedly "very beautiful" girls, and not only to girls. They keep at it, walk alongside, praising their wares until you answer roughly. They dont know that you have resolved to eat nothing but rice just to escape from sexuality!"
"Has the world ever been changed by anything save the thought and its magic vehicle the Word?"