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
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.
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.
order hands philosopher
The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.
believe goal condescension-and
Almost Kien was tempted to believe in happiness, that contemptible life-goal of illiterates. If it came of itself, without being hunted for, if you did not hold it fast by force and treated it with a certain condescension, it was permissible to endure its presence for a few days
scratches statistics
He would like to start from scratch. Where is scratch?
death guilty obsessed
He who is obsessed by death is made guilty by it.