# Thomas Mann - Quotes: 76 - Author page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann ## Books - [Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/confessions-of-felix-krull-confidence-man.md) — 5 quotes - [Death in Venice](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/death-in-venice.md) — 17 quotes - [Doctor Faustus](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/doctor-faustus.md) — 2 quotes - [The Magic Mountain](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain.md) — 57 quotes ## Recently added quotes > Aschenbach ... was overwrought by a morning of hard, nerve-taxing work, work which had not ceased to exact its uttermost in the way of sustained concentration, conscientiousness, and tact; and after the noon meal found himself powerless to check the onward sweep of the productive mechanism within him, that motus animi continuus in which, according to Cicero, eloquence resides. p. 3 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/death-in-venice/aschenbach-was-overwrought.md) > Asia surrounds us — wherever one's glance rests, a Tartar physiognomy. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain/asia-surrounds-us-wherever.md) > Rough translation of this passage written in French: The body, love, death, these three are just one. For the body, this is the disease and exquisite delight, and this that does die, yes, they are carnal both of them, love and death, and thus their terror and their great magic! [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain/rough-translation-of-this.md) > Translation: What we call mourning for our dead is perhaps not so much grief at not being able to call them back as it is grief at not being able to want to do so. [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain/translation-what-we-call.md) > Love for him, for the human body, was extremely humanitarian an interest and had more educational power than the whole teaching skills of the world! [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/the-magic-mountain/love-for-him.md) > What discipline, what precision of thought were expressed by the tense youthful perfection of this form! And yet the pure, strong will which had laboured in darkness and succeeded in bringing this godlike work of art to the light of day—was it not known and familiar to him, the artist? Was not the same force at work in himself when he strove in cold fury to liberate from the marble mass of language the slender forms of his art which he saw with the eye of his mind and would body forth to men as the mirror and image of spiritual beauty? p. 44 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/death-in-venice/what-discipline-what.md) > Outsiders might be pardoned for believing that his Maia world and the epic amplitude revealed by the life of Frederick were a manifestation of great power working under high pressure, that they came forth, as it were, all in one breath. It was the more triumph for his morale; for the truth was that they were heaped up to greatness in layer after layer, in long days of work, out of hundreds and hundreds of single inspirations; they owed their excellence, both of mass and detail, to one thing and one alone; that their creator could hold out for years under the strain of the same piece of work. p. 10 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/death-in-venice/outsiders-might-be-pardoned.md) > Mirror and image! His eyes took in the proud bearing of that figure there at the blue water’s edge; with an outburst of rapture he told himself that what he saw was beauty’s very essence; form as divine thought, the single and pure perfection which resides in the mind, of which an image and likeness, rare and holy, was here raised up for adoration. p. 44 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/death-in-venice/mirror-and-image.md) > Socrates … said the subtlest thing of all: that the lover was nearer the divine than the beloved. p. 45 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/death-in-venice/socrates-said-the.md) > And so the new impulse which thus late and suddenly swept over him was speedily made to conform to the pattern of self-discipline he had followed from his youth up. He had meant to bring his work, for which he lived, to a certain point before leaving for the country, and the thought of a leisurely ramble across the globe, which should take him away from his desk for months, was too fantastic and upsetting to be seriously entertained. Yet the source of the unexpected contagion was known to him only too well. This yearning for new and distant scenes, this craving for freedom, release, forgetfulness—they were, he admitted to himself, an impulse towards flight, flight from the spot which was the daily theatre of a rigid, cold, and passionate service. That service he loved, had even almost come to love the enervating daily struggle between a proud, tenacious, well-tried will and this growing fatigue, which no one must suspect, nor the finished product betray by any faintest sign that his inspiration could ever flag or miss fire. On the other hand, it seemed the part of common sense not to span the bow too far, not to suppress summarily a need that so unequivocally asserted itself. p. 6 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/death-in-venice/and-so-the.md) > Beauty … is the sole aspect of the spiritual which we can perceive through our senses. p. 45 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/death-in-venice/beauty-is-the.md) > Aschenbach ... had, at least ever since he commanded means to get about the world at will, regarded travel as a necessary evil, to be endured now and again willy-nilly for the sake of one’s health. Too busy with the tasks imposed upon him by his own ego and the European soul, too laden with the care and duty to create, too preoccupied to be an amateur of the gay outer world, he had been content to know as much of the earth’s surface as he could without stirring far outside his own sphere—had, indeed, never even been tempted to leave Europe. Now more than ever, since his life was on the wane, since he could no longer brush aside as fanciful his artist fear of not having done, of not being finished before the works ran down, he had confined himself to close range, had hardly stepped outside the charming city which he had made his home. p. 6 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/thomas-mann/death-in-venice/aschenbach-had-at-least.md)