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
fear pessimism boring
Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.
thinking speaks-out enemy
It is always the enemy who started it, even if he was not the first to speak out, he was certainly planning it; and if he was not actually planning it, he was thinking of it; and, if he was not thinking of it, he would have thought of it.
men opposites feelings
It is only in a crowd that man can become free of this fear of being touched. That is the only situation in which the fear changes into its opposite… The reversal of fear of being touched belongs to the nature of crowds. The feeling of relief is most striking where the density of the crowd is greatest
deaf applause
Success listens only to applause. To all else it is deaf
eye home office
...how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?
fate names people
People's fates are simplified by their names
lying
Someone who always has to lie discovers that every one of his lies is true
art learning
Learning is the art of ignoring.
real lying men
Slumbering in every human being lies an infinity of possibilities, which one must not arouse in vain. For it is terrible when the whole man resonates with echoes and echoes, none becoming a real voice.
understanding misunderstanding
Understanding, as we understand it, is misunderstanding.
history sides ifs
History portrays everything as if it could not have come otherwise. History is on the side of what happened.
hate self people
People love as self-recognition what they hate as an accusation.
philosophical despair may
Everything one records contains a grain of hope, no matter how deeply it may come from despair.
success space one-day
Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence.