Top 80 Robert Musil Quotes (2024 Update)
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Robert Musil Quote: “Things seemed to consist not of wood and stone but of some grandiose and infinitely tender immorality that, the moment it came in contact with him, turned into a deep moral shock.”

51. “Things seemed to consist not of wood and stone but of some grandiose and infinitely tender immorality that, the moment it came in contact with him, turned into a deep moral shock.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “For if one is partly insane, one is also, juridically, partly sane, and if one is partly sane one is at least partly responsible for one’s actions, and if one is partly responsible one is wholly responsible; for responsibility is, as they say, that state in which the individual has the power to devote himself to a specific purpose of his own free will, independently of any compelling necessity, and one cannot simultaneously possess and lack such self-determination.”

52. “For if one is partly insane, one is also, juridically, partly sane, and if one is partly sane one is at least partly responsible for one’s actions, and if one is partly responsible one is wholly responsible; for responsibility is, as they say, that state in which the individual has the power to devote himself to a specific purpose of his own free will, independently of any compelling necessity, and one cannot simultaneously possess and lack such self-determination.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Leute, die jederzeit zu sterben meinen, leben lang!”

53. “Leute, die jederzeit zu sterben meinen, leben lang!”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “All the knowledge that has led our species from wearing animal skins to people flying, complete with proofs, would fill a handful of reference books, but a bookcase the size of the earth would not suffice to hold all the rest, quite apart from the vast discussions that are conducted not with the pen but with the sword and chains.”

54. “All the knowledge that has led our species from wearing animal skins to people flying, complete with proofs, would fill a handful of reference books, but a bookcase the size of the earth would not suffice to hold all the rest, quite apart from the vast discussions that are conducted not with the pen but with the sword and chains.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “A man can’t be angry at his own time without suffering some damage.”

55. “A man can’t be angry at his own time without suffering some damage.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “His extraordinary indifference to the life snapping at the bait is matched by the risk he runs of doing utterly eccentric things. 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 that 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.”

56. “His extraordinary indifference to the life snapping at the bait is matched by the risk he runs of doing utterly eccentric things. 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 that 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.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “How little one knows what one knows, or wants what one wants.”

57. “How little one knows what one knows, or wants what one wants.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “We have a tendency in this country to fall in love with noted personalities, like the drunks who throw their arms around a stranger’s neck, only to push him away again after a while, for equally obscure reasons.”

58. “We have a tendency in this country to fall in love with noted personalities, like the drunks who throw their arms around a stranger’s neck, only to push him away again after a while, for equally obscure reasons.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Scientific reason, with its strict conscience, its lack of prejudice, and its determination to question every result again the moment it might lead to the least intellectual advantage, does in an area of secondary interest what we ought to be doing with the basic questions of life.”

59. “Scientific reason, with its strict conscience, its lack of prejudice, and its determination to question every result again the moment it might lead to the least intellectual advantage, does in an area of secondary interest what we ought to be doing with the basic questions of life.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “A politician who climbs high over the bodies of the slain is described as vile or great according to the degree of his success.”

60. “A politician who climbs high over the bodies of the slain is described as vile or great according to the degree of his success.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “At this point he quit, right in the middle of an important and promising piece of work. He now saw his colleagues partly as relentless, obsessive public prosecutors and security chiefs of logic, and partly as opium eaters, addicts of some strange pale drug that filled their world with visions of numbers and abstract relations. “God help me,” he thought, “surely I never could have meant to spend all my life as a mathematician?”

61. “At this point he quit, right in the middle of an important and promising piece of work. He now saw his colleagues partly as relentless, obsessive public prosecutors and security chiefs of logic, and partly as opium eaters, addicts of some strange pale drug that filled their world with visions of numbers and abstract relations. “God help me,” he thought, “surely I never could have meant to spend all my life as a mathematician?”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “On her way back she thought she noticed that everything in the world was secretly contrived for beatings. It was just a thought that went through her mind. Parents their child. The state its convicts. The military its soldiers. The rich the poor. The coachman his horse. People went walking with big dogs on leashes. Everyone would rather intimidate another person than come to an understanding with him.”

62. “On her way back she thought she noticed that everything in the world was secretly contrived for beatings. It was just a thought that went through her mind. Parents their child. The state its convicts. The military its soldiers. The rich the poor. The coachman his horse. People went walking with big dogs on leashes. Everyone would rather intimidate another person than come to an understanding with him.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “That the will of the people can be established by voting for democrats is, of course, a delusion. Yet when considering a non-threatening system for deciding between diverse interests, then voting, of course, can be regarded as a humane and civilized process.”

63. “That the will of the people can be established by voting for democrats is, of course, a delusion. Yet when considering a non-threatening system for deciding between diverse interests, then voting, of course, can be regarded as a humane and civilized process.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Such elderly people were in the habit of saying that he simply had no will-power; but it might just as well have been said that he had all his life long only been a many-sided dilettante.”

64. “Such elderly people were in the habit of saying that he simply had no will-power; but it might just as well have been said that he had all his life long only been a many-sided dilettante.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “The thoughts of my emotionally so disturbed days must be found again, shifted and developed further. Here and there something of the loose remarks I make must be used, but only when it finds my attention again.”

65. “The thoughts of my emotionally so disturbed days must be found again, shifted and developed further. Here and there something of the loose remarks I make must be used, but only when it finds my attention again.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “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.”

66. “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.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Within reality there is a senseless craving for unreality.”

67. “Within reality there is a senseless craving for unreality.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “You see how wrong I go, how ridiculous I’m making myself in your eyes by keeping on guessing wrong like this! Doesn’t that help you to come out with it? Come on now!”

68. “You see how wrong I go, how ridiculous I’m making myself in your eyes by keeping on guessing wrong like this! Doesn’t that help you to come out with it? Come on now!”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Is not art then a tool we employ to peel the kitsch off life? Layer by layer art strips life bare. The more abstract it gets, the more transparent the air is. Can it be that the farther it is removed from life, the clearer art becomes? What a backwards contention it is to claim that life is more important than art! Life is good as long as it holds up to art: That in life which cannot be employed for art’s sake is kitsch!”

69. “Is not art then a tool we employ to peel the kitsch off life? Layer by layer art strips life bare. The more abstract it gets, the more transparent the air is. Can it be that the farther it is removed from life, the clearer art becomes? What a backwards contention it is to claim that life is more important than art! Life is good as long as it holds up to art: That in life which cannot be employed for art’s sake is kitsch!”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “We resort to violence because, after much long and futile talk, the simplicity of violence is an immense relief. People band together in organizations because obedience to orders enables them to do things they have long been incapable of doing out of personal conviction, and the hostility between organizations allows them to engage in the unending reciprocity of blood feuds, while love would all too soon put everyone sleep.”

70. “We resort to violence because, after much long and futile talk, the simplicity of violence is an immense relief. People band together in organizations because obedience to orders enables them to do things they have long been incapable of doing out of personal conviction, and the hostility between organizations allows them to engage in the unending reciprocity of blood feuds, while love would all too soon put everyone sleep.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “The body of reality is always richer than the mere outline sketch we call principles.”

71. “The body of reality is always richer than the mere outline sketch we call principles.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “You proclaim that one should die for the highest virtues, because you take it for granted that nobody’s been living for them, not even for a single hour.”

72. “You proclaim that one should die for the highest virtues, because you take it for granted that nobody’s been living for them, not even for a single hour.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Every man is two people, and one hardly knows whether it is in the morning or in the evening that he reverts to his real self.”

73. “Every man is two people, and one hardly knows whether it is in the morning or in the evening that he reverts to his real self.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Can you imagine Jesus as boss of a coal mine?”

74. “Can you imagine Jesus as boss of a coal mine?”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Het valt niet te ontkennen dat wij in elke afzonderlijke tak van het menselijk kunnen zo veel vooruitgang boeken dat wij terecht het gevoel hebben het niet bij te kunnen houden; zou het niet mogelijk zijn dat daaruit ook het gevoel ontstaat dat wij geen vooruitgang beleven? Uiteindelijk is vooruitgang niets anders dan het resultaat van alle gezamenlijke inspanningen, en eigenlijk kun je dus al van tevoren zeggend at de werkelijke vooruitgang altijd juist dat zal zijn wat niemand wilde.”

75. “Het valt niet te ontkennen dat wij in elke afzonderlijke tak van het menselijk kunnen zo veel vooruitgang boeken dat wij terecht het gevoel hebben het niet bij te kunnen houden; zou het niet mogelijk zijn dat daaruit ook het gevoel ontstaat dat wij geen vooruitgang beleven? Uiteindelijk is vooruitgang niets anders dan het resultaat van alle gezamenlijke inspanningen, en eigenlijk kun je dus al van tevoren zeggend at de werkelijke vooruitgang altijd juist dat zal zijn wat niemand wilde.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Fai bene quanto puoi e male quanto devi, sempre consapevole del margine d’errore del tuo fare.”

76. “Fai bene quanto puoi e male quanto devi, sempre consapevole del margine d’errore del tuo fare.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Isn’t it greatly in my favor that I don’t belong here but in jail?”

77. “Isn’t it greatly in my favor that I don’t belong here but in jail?”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “This was clearly madness, just as clearly it was no more than a distortion of our own elements of being. Cracked and obscure it was; it somehow occurred to Ulrich that if mankind could dream as a whole, that dream would be Moosbrugger.”

78. “This was clearly madness, just as clearly it was no more than a distortion of our own elements of being. Cracked and obscure it was; it somehow occurred to Ulrich that if mankind could dream as a whole, that dream would be Moosbrugger.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Ideals have curious properties, and one of them is that they turn into their opposites when one tries to live up to them.”

79. “Ideals have curious properties, and one of them is that they turn into their opposites when one tries to live up to them.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “For when we lie nowadays it is not so much out of weakness as out of a conviction that a man cannot prevail in life unless he is able to lie.”

80. “For when we lie nowadays it is not so much out of weakness as out of a conviction that a man cannot prevail in life unless he is able to lie.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “There is a nameless mood abroad in the world today, a feeling in the blood of more than a few people, an expectation of worse things to come, a readiness to riot, a mistrust of everything one reveres.”

81. “There is a nameless mood abroad in the world today, a feeling in the blood of more than a few people, an expectation of worse things to come, a readiness to riot, a mistrust of everything one reveres.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “There is no great happiness without great taboos. Even in business, to pursue one’s advantage at all costs is to risk getting nowhere. Keeping within one’s limits is the secret of all phenomena, of power, happiness, faith, and the key to the task of maintaining oneself as a tiny human creature within the universe.”

82. “There is no great happiness without great taboos. Even in business, to pursue one’s advantage at all costs is to risk getting nowhere. Keeping within one’s limits is the secret of all phenomena, of power, happiness, faith, and the key to the task of maintaining oneself as a tiny human creature within the universe.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Naturally, no professional man of our time bases his arguments on those of philosophy and theology, but as perspectives – empty, like space, and yet, like space, telescoping the objects in it – these two rivals for the last word of wisdom persist everywhere in invading the optics of each special field of knowledge.”

83. “Naturally, no professional man of our time bases his arguments on those of philosophy and theology, but as perspectives – empty, like space, and yet, like space, telescoping the objects in it – these two rivals for the last word of wisdom persist everywhere in invading the optics of each special field of knowledge.”

— Robert Musil

Robert Musil Quote: “Is not art then a tool we employ to peel the kitsch off life?”

84. “Is not art then a tool we employ to peel the kitsch off life?”

— Robert Musil

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