An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates. Thomas Mann on art
For I must tell you that we artists cannot tread the path of Beauty without Eros keeping company with us and appointing himself as our guide. Thomas Mann on beauty
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 on beauty
For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty over his thoughts. Thomas Mann on death
All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life. Thomas Mann on death
It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death. Thomas Mann on death
The only religious way to think of death is as part and parcel of life. Thomas Mann on death
It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive. Thomas Mann on equality
Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I heard my family called decent. Thomas Mann on family
It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive. Thomas Mann on freedom
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 on future
What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life. Thomas Mann on history
War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace. Thomas Mann on peace
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 on poetry
For to be poised against fatality, to meet adverse conditions gracefully, is more than simple endurance it is an act of aggression, a positive triumph. Thomas Mann on positive
It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive. Thomas Mann on society
Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. Thomas Mann on time
A harmful truth is better than a useful lie. Thomas Mann on truth
A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth. Thomas Mann on truth