92 Best Thomas Mann Quotes
![A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52859.jpg)
A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.
![Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52860.jpg)
Solitude gives birth to the original in us, to beauty unfamiliar and perilous - to poetry. But also, it gives birth to the opposite: to the perverse, the illicit, the absurd.
![It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52861.jpg)
It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.
![In books we never find anything but ourselves. Strangely enough, that always gives us great pleasure, and we say the author is a genius.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52862.jpg)
In books we never find anything but ourselves. Strangely enough, that always gives us great pleasure, and we say the author is a genius.
![Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52863.jpg)
Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.
![Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52864.jpg)
Solitude produces originality, bold and astonishing beauty, poetry. But solitude also produces perverseness, the disproportianate, the absurd and the forbidden.
![Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52865.jpg)
Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.
![No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52866.jpg)
No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.
![War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52867.jpg)
War is only a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.
![He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52868.jpg)
He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.
![There is only one real misfortune: to forfeit one's own good opinion of oneself. Lose your complacency, once betray your own self-contempt and the world will unhesitatingly endorse it.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52869.jpg)
There is only one real misfortune: to forfeit one's own good opinion of oneself. Lose your complacency, once betray your own self-contempt and the world will unhesitatingly endorse it.
![There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52870.jpg)
There are so many different kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.
![Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52871.jpg)
Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life.
![He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52872.jpg)
He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.
![I know I am talking nonsense, but I’d rather go rambling on, and partly expressing something I find it difficult to express, than to keep on transmitting faultless platitudes.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52873.jpg)
I know I am talking nonsense, but I’d rather go rambling on, and partly expressing something I find it difficult to express, than to keep on transmitting faultless platitudes.
![Yes, they are carnal, both of them, love and death, and therein lies their terror and their great magic!](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52874.jpg)
Yes, they are carnal, both of them, love and death, and therein lies their terror and their great magic!
![A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52875.jpg)
A harmful truth is better than a useful lie.
![Distance in a straight line has no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52876.jpg)
Distance in a straight line has no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere.
![All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52877.jpg)
All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.
![I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither, and I suffer in consequence. You artists call me a bourgeois, and the bourgeois try to arrest me...I don't know which makes me feel worse.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52878.jpg)
I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither, and I suffer in consequence. You artists call me a bourgeois, and the bourgeois try to arrest me...I don't know which makes me feel worse.
![Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought - these are the artist's highest joy.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52879.jpg)
Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought - these are the artist's highest joy.
![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.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52881.jpg)
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.
![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.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52880.jpg)
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.
![We do not fear being called meticulous, inclining as we do to the view that only the exhaustive can be truly interesting.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52883.jpg)
We do not fear being called meticulous, inclining as we do to the view that only the exhaustive can be truly interesting.
![Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52882.jpg)
Only love, and not reason, yields kind thoughts.
![Technology and comfort - having those, people speak of culture, but do not have it.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52885.jpg)
Technology and comfort - having those, people speak of culture, but do not have it.
![Order and simplification are the first steps towards mastery of a subject](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52884.jpg)
Order and simplification are the first steps towards mastery of a subject
![I have always been an admirer, I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don't know where I would be without it.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52888.jpg)
I have always been an admirer, I regard the gift of admiration as indispensable if one is to amount to something; I don't know where I would be without it.
![Forbearance in the face of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52887.jpg)
Forbearance in the face of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph.
![…What our age needs, what it demands, what it will create for itself, is—terror.](https://www.wisdomly.net/images/quotes/thomas-mann-52886.jpg)
…What our age needs, what it demands, what it will create for itself, is—terror.