Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann
Paul Thomas Mannwas 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 German and Biblical stories, as well as the ideas of Goethe, Nietzsche and Schopenhauer...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth6 June 1875
CityLubeck, Germany
CountryGermany
I love and reverence the Word, the bearer of the spirit, the tool and gleaming ploughshare of progress.
And then the sly arch-lover that he was, he said the subtlest thing of all: that the lover was nearer the divine than the beloved; for the god was in the one but not in the other - perhaps the tenderest, most mocking thought that ever was thought, and source of all the guile and secret bliss the lover knows.
Yes, they are carnal, both of them, love and death, and therein lies their terror and their great magic!
For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty over his thoughts.
A man's dying is more his survivor's affair than his own.
This was love at first sight, love everlasting: a feeling unknown, unhoped for, unexpected--in so far as it could be a matter of conscious awareness; it took entire possession of him, and he understood, with joyous amazement, that this was for life.
But my deepest and most secret love belongs to the fair-haired and the blue-eyed, the bright children of life, the happy, the charming and the ordinary.
We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities.
Isn't it grand, isn't it good, that language has only one word for everything we associate with love - from utter sanctity to the most fleshly lust? The result is perfect clarity in ambiguity, for love cannot be disembodied even in its most sanctified forms, nor is it without sanctity even at its most fleshly. Love is always simply itself, both as a subtle affirmation of life and as the highest passion; love is our sympathy with organic life.
It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.
Bush's partisan style of governance has reinforced it.
Separation would likely do more harm than good for congressional Republicans. They need to try to rehabilitate the president's political standing, which will have a large bearing on the size of their seat loss in 2006.
Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential youthfulness.
For the beautiful word begets the beautiful deed.