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.
war want firsts
Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim.
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.
force superlatives destructive
There emanates from superlatives a destructive force.
lying
Someone who always has to lie discovers that every one of his lies is true
children
A child. . . opens and closes like a blossom.