What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history in German intellectual life. – Thomas Mann
For to be poised against fatality, to meet adverse conditions gracefully, is more than simple endurance it is an act of aggression, a positive triumph. – Thomas Mann
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. – 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