Elias Canetti
Elias Canetti
Elias Canettiwas a German language author, born in Bulgaria, and later a British citizen. He was a modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist and non-fiction writer. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1981, "for writings marked by a broad outlook, a wealth of ideas and artistic power"...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth25 July 1905
CountrySwitzerland
Elias Canetti quotes about
fall order return
A person often falls very ill in order to become someone else and then returns to health much disappointed.
death men important
It is important what a man still plans at the end. It shows the measure of injustice in his death.
self want self-knowledge
The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else.
use praise should
One should use praise to recognize what one is not.
relax trying energy
I try to imagine someone saying to Shakespeare, 'Relax!
darkness unexpected crime
The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness.
beauty
Beauty always has something remote.
heart law justice
Justice begins with the recognition of the necessity of sharing. The oldest law is that which regulates it, and this is still themost important law today and, as such, has remained the basic concern of all movements which have at heart the community of human activities and of human existence in general.
mad effort survival
The planet's survival has become so uncertain that any effort, any thought that presupposes an assured future amounts to a mad gamble.
men
Most religions do not make men better, only warier.
war want firsts
Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim.
book reading desert
In five minutes the earth would be a desert, and you cling to books.
life endorsements should
One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it.
men add lice
A 'modern' man has nothing to add to modernism, if only because he has nothing to oppose it with. The well-adapted drop off the dead limb of time like lice.