The Quotes canon
Sourced and curated.
Every quote has been curated by hand and carefully authenticated.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Thomas Mann9 quotes
Beauty can pierce one like a pain. — Thomas Mann · 1901Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century beings it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. — Thomas Mann · 1924A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries. — Thomas Mann · 1924Time cools, time clarifies; no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. — Thomas Mann · 1924And waiting means hurrying on ahead, it means regarding time and the present moment not as a boon, but an obstruction; it means making their actual content null and void, by mentally overleaping them. Waiting we say is long. We might just as well-or more accurately-say it is short, since it consumes whole spaces of time without our living them or making any use of them as such. — Thomas Mann · 1924Hold fast the time! Guard it, watch over it, every hour, every minute! Unregarded it slips away, like a lizard, smooth, slippery, faithless, a pixy wife. Hold every moment sacred. Give each clarity and meaning, each the weight of thine awareness, each its true and due fulfillment. — Thomas Mann · 1939All 9 quotes →