Thomas Mann

A man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own.

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life.

For one human being instinctively feels respect and love for another human being so long as he does not know him well enough to judge him; and that he does not, the craving he feels is evidence.

No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

We are not free, separate, and independent entities, but like links in a chain, and we could not by any means be what we are without those who went before us and showed us the way.

Speech is civilization itself... It is silence which isolates.

Opinions cannot survive if one has no chance to fight for them.

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunder-storm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols.