Robert Musil
Robert Musil
Robert Musilwas an Austrian philosophical writer. His unfinished novel The Man Without Qualitiesis generally considered to be one of the most important and influential modernist novels...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth6 November 1880
CountryAustria
progress would-be wonderful
Progress would be wonderful - if only it would stop.
age baseness conform
One must conform to the baseness of an age or become neurotic.
thinking events
The thought is not something that observes an inner event, but, rather it is this inner event itself. We do not reflect on something, but, rather, something thinks itself in us.
people decision true-and-false
True' and 'false' are the evasions of people who never want to arrive at a decision. Truth is something without end.
skins surface form
Life forms a surface that acts as if it could not be otherwise, but under its skin things are pounding and pulsing.
doe
One does what one is; one becomes what one does.
reality choices world
And what would you do, ... if you could rule the world for a day? I suppose I would have no choice but to abolish reality.
lying might stuff
I am not only convinced that what I say is false, but also that what one might say against it is false. Despite this, one must begin to talk about it. In such a case the truth lies not in the middle, but rather all around, like a sack, which, with each new opinion one stuffs into it, changes its form, and becomes more and more firm.
lying intellectual analogies
In their field they [mathematicians] do what we ought to be doing in ours. Therein lies the significant lesson ... of their existence. They are an analogy for the intellectual of the future.
mean men ideas
An impractical man--which he not only seems to be, but really is--will always be unreliable and unpredictable in his dealings with others. He will engage in actions that mean something else to him than to others, but he is at peace with himself about everything as long as he can make it all come together in a fine idea.
clearly felt usual
Today I start a diary; it is against my usual habbits, but out of a clearly felt need.
art fall curves
His answers were quite often like that. When she spoke of beauty, he spoke of the fatty tissue supporting the epidermis. When she mentioned love, he responded with the statistical curve that indicates the automatic rise and fall in the annual birthrate. When she spoke of the great figures in art, he traced the chain of borrowings that links these figures to one another.
art mean sides
To love something as an artist ... means to be shaken not by its ultimate value or lack of value, but by a side of it that suddenly opens up. Where art has value it shows things that few have seen. It's conquering, not pacifying.
art mean perfect
Don't you know that every perfect life would mean the end of art?