Thomas Mann Quotations | Page 2

Reduced to a miserable mass level, the level of a Hitler, German Romanticism broke out into hysterical barbarism.

Is not life in itself a thing of goodness, irrespective of whether the course it takes for us can be called a 'happy' one?

What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life.

He thought what a fine thing it was that people made music all over the world, even in the strangest settings – probably even on polar expeditions.

Forbearance in the face of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph.

The accouterments of life were so rich and varied, so elaborated, that almost no place at all was left for life itself. Each and every accessory was so costly and beautiful that it had an existence above and beyond the purpose it was meant to serve – confusing the observer and absorbing attention.

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.

I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.