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
One always has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual. – Thomas Mann
For the myth is the foundation of life; it is the timeless schema, the pious formula into which life flows when it reproduces its traits out of the unconscious. – Thomas Mann
For the sake of goodness and love, man shall let death have no sovereignty over his thoughts. – Thomas Mann
People’s behavior makes sense if you think about it in terms of their goals, needs, and motives. – Thomas Mann
Reduced to a miserable mass level, the level of a Hitler, German Romanticism broke out into hysterical barbarism. – Thomas Mann
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
One has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual. – Thomas Mann
Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential youthfulness. – Thomas Mann