Quotes from Tonio Kröger

“I stand between two worlds. I am at home in neither, and I suffer in consequence. You artists call me a bourgeois, and the bourgeois try to arrest me...I don't know which makes me feel worse.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Whoever loves the more is at a disadvantage and must suffer”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Seltsam ist es. Beherrscht dich ein Gedanke, so findest du ihn überall ausgedrückt,
du r i e c h s t ihn sogar im Winde.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“He undressed, lay down, put out the light. Two names he whispered into his pillow, the few chaste northern syllables that meant for him his true and native way of love, of longing and happiness; that meant to him life and home, meant simple and heartfelt feeling. He looked back on the years that had passed. He thought of the dreamy adventures of the senses, nerves, and mind in which he had been involved; saw himself eaten up with intellect and introspection, ravaged and paralysed by insight, half worn out by the fevers and frosts of creation, helpless and in anguish of conscience between two extremes, flung to and fro between austerity and lust; raffiné, impoverished, exhausted by frigid and artificially heightened ecstasies; erring, forsaken, martyred, and ill -- and sobbed with nostalgia and remorse.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Mere knowledge of human psychology would in itself infallibly make us despondent if we were not cheered and kept alert by the satisfaction of expressing it.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“He worked, not like a man who works that he may live; but as one who is bent on doing nothing but work; having no regard for himself as a human being but only as a creator; moving about grey and unobtrusive among his fellows like an actor without his make-up, who counts for nothing as soon as he stops representing something else.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Ako vam je suviše stalo do onoga što imate kazati, ako vam je ono suviše priraslo srcu, možete biti sigurni, da ćete doživeti potpuni neuspeh. Postat ćete patetični, postati ćete sentimentalni, pod vašim rukama nastaće nešto nezgrapno, nespretno, neozbiljno, neobuzdano, bez ironije, neslano, dosadno, banalno a kraj priče biće: samo ravnodušnost u ljudi, samo razočaranje i jad u vama.
Jer tako vam je to , Lizaveto: Osećaj, topli, srdačni osećaj uvek je banalan i neupotrebljiv a umetnička je samo razdraženost i hladna ekstaza našeg pokvarenog, našeg artističkog živčanog sistema”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Denn das Glück, sagte er sich, ist nicht, geliebt zu werden; das ist mit Ekel gemischte Genugtuung für die Eitelkeit. Das Glück ist, zu lieben und vielleicht kleine, trügerische Annäherungen an den geliebten Gegenstand zu erhaschen.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“What they, in their innocence, cannot comprehend is that a properly constituted, healthy, decent man never writes, acts, or composes.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Ako je lutao, bilo je to zato, što za neke ljude uopšte nema pravog puta.
Kad bi ga pitali, šta zapravo kani postati, davao bi različite odgovore, jer je običavao reći ( a bio je to već i napisao), da nosi u sebi mogućnosti za hiljadu načina života, zajedno s potajnom svesti, da su to zapravo same nemogućnosti.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Čudno je to. Kad čoveka obuzme neka misao, onda je nalazi svuda, čak je i miriše u vetru.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Io sto tra due mondi, di cui nessuno e' il mio, e per questo la mia vita e' un po' difficile.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Sì: vi sono alcuni che necessariamente smarriscono la strada, poiché per loro non esiste una strada giusta.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“C’è nostalgia, dentro, e malinconica invidia, appena un po’ di disprezzo e una grande, casta felicità.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Non lavorava come chi lavora per vivere, ma come qualcuno che non abbia altro scopo che lavorare, giudicandosi zero come uomo vivente e desiderando essere considerato solo in quanto artefice, che per il resto se ne va in giro modesto e insignificante, come un attore senza trucco, che non è nulla finchè non ha nulla da interpretare. Lavorava silenzioso, appartato, invisibile e pieno di disprezzo per quei mediocri che consideravano il genio un ornamento mondano e, poveri o ricchi che fossero, andavano in giro arruffati e cenciosi, o ricercavano il lusso con eccentriche cravatte, e insomma erano convinti di menare una vita insuperabilmente felice, affascinante e artistica; senza sapere che le opere di valore nascono solo sotto il premere di una vita cattiva, che colui che vive non lavora e che, per essere perfetti creatori, bisogna essere morti.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Vuole credere lei che sarei orgoglioso e felice di possedere un amico tra gli uomini? Ma fino ad ora ho avuto amici solo tra demoni, farfarelli, mostri oscuri e fantasmi afasiaci, vale a dire: tra letterati.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“A felicidade é amar e talvez colher pequenas aproximações ilusórias da pessoa amada.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“... sentia a distância que o separava dela, pois seu modo de falar não era o dela. E mesmo assim era feliz, pois a felicidade, dizia para si mesmo, não é ser amado; isto é uma satisfação misturada com asco para a vaidade. A felicidade é amar e talvez colher pequenas aproximações ilusórias da pessoa amada.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Chi più ama è il più debole e deve soffrire.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Ricominciar da capo? Ma non servirebbe a nulla. Sarebbe di nuovo così, tutto accadrebbe di nuovo come è già accaduto. Poiché alcuni non possono che smarrire il cammino, in quanto per essi una strada giusta proprio non esiste.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“ბედნიერება იმაში კი არ არის, რომ უყვარდეთ; ეს გაძლევს მხოლოდ კმაყოფილების გრძნობას. იყო ბედნიერი - ნიშნავს გიყვარდეს, დაიჭირო წარმავალი, შესაძლოა მაცდური წამიერი გაელვებები, შენი სიყვარულის ობიექტის სიახლოვეს”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

“Y, aunque sabía muy bien que el amor le tenía que aportar muchos sufrimientos, torturas y humillaciones y que, además, le robaba la paz y colmaba su corazón de melodías, sin poder hallar el sosiego necesario para dar forma definitiva a nada y forjar proyectos con tranquilidad, sin embargo, acogió el amor con alegría, se entregó enteramente a él y lo fomentó con todas las fibras de su corazón, pues sabía que lo enriquecía y vivificaba, y él anhelaba ser rico y estar lleno de vida en vez de tener tranquilidad para forjarse proyectos.”
― Thomas Mann, quote from Tonio Kröger

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Popular quotes

“I often think that men don't understand what is noble and what is ignorant, though they always talk about it.”
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“They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then—how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal.”
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“I hate all those flirty-birty games that women make up. Life's too short. If you ever find a man you love, don't waste time hanging your head and simpering. Go right up to him and say, 'I love you. How about getting married?”
― Betty Smith, quote from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.

It? I ast.

Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It.

But what do it look like? I ast.

Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.

Shug a beautiful something, let me tell you. She frown a little, look out cross the yard, lean back in her chair, look like a big rose. She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate
at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.

Shug! I say.

Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That's some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves 'em you enjoys 'em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that's going, and praise God by liking what you like.

God don't think it dirty? I ast.

Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love? and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration.

You saying God vain? I ast.

Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.

What it do when it pissed off? I ast.

Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.

Yeah? I say.

Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.

You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.

Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?

Well, us talk and talk bout God, but I'm still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little wildflowers. Nothing. Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool. Next to any little scrub of a bush in my yard, Mr. ____s evil sort of shrink. But not altogether. Still, it is like Shug say, You have to git man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a'tall.

Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere.

Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind,water, a big rock.

But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he don't want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.

Amen”
― Alice Walker, quote from The Color Purple

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