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
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.
want smashing whole
I want to keep smashing myself until I am whole.
philosophical despair may
Everything one records contains a grain of hope, no matter how deeply it may come from despair.
hate self people
People love as self-recognition what they hate as an accusation.
might goodness capability
As if one could know the good a person is capable of, when one doesn't know the bad he might do.
people use ifs
Words are not too old, only people are too old if they use the same words too frequently.
inspirational aphorism wells
The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other well.
success space one-day
Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence.
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.
war want firsts
Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim.
life endorsements should
One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it.
acceptance self want
The self- explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else. He learns to see himself, but suddenly, provided he was honest, all the rest appears, and it is as rich as he was, and, as a final crowning, richer.
men
Most religions do not make men better, only warier.
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