Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti
Elias Canettiwas a German language author, born in Bulgaria, and later a British citizen. He was a modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist and non-fiction writer. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power"...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 July 1905
CountrySwitzerland
order hands philosopher
The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.
might goodness capability
As if one could know the good a person is capable of, when one doesn't know the bad he might do.
atheist grief fate
There can be no Creator, simply because his grief at the fate of his creation would be inconceivable and unendurable.
death guilty obsessed
He who is obsessed by death is made guilty by it.
god long impossible
Whether or not God is dead: it is impossible to keep silent about him who was there for so long.
mad effort survival
The planet's survival has become so uncertain that any effort, any thought that presupposes an assured future amounts to a mad gamble.
names magic statistics
You have but to know an object by its proper name for it to lose its dangerous magic.
eye home office
...how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?
history sides ifs
History portrays everything as if it could not have come otherwise. History is on the side of what happened.
self want self-knowledge
The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else.
use praise should
One should use praise to recognize what one is not.
relax trying energy
I try to imagine someone saying to Shakespeare, 'Relax!
darkness unexpected crime
The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness.
death men important
It is important what a man still plans at the end. It shows the measure of injustice in his death.