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Top 250 Thomas Mann Quotes (2026 Update)
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Thomas Mann Quote: “Innate in nearly every artistic nature is a wanton, treacherous penchant for accepting injustice when it creates beauty.”

201. “Innate in nearly every artistic nature is a wanton, treacherous penchant for accepting injustice when it creates beauty.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “You want everything to be harmless, Castorp, that’s the sort of fellow you are. You’re not at all averse to getting involved in things that are not harmless, but then you treat them as if they were, and you think that will ingratiate you with God and man.”

202. “You want everything to be harmless, Castorp, that’s the sort of fellow you are. You’re not at all averse to getting involved in things that are not harmless, but then you treat them as if they were, and you think that will ingratiate you with God and man.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Consider your self-respect, your pride. Do not lose yourself in an alien world. Avoid that swamp, that isle of Circe – for you are not Odysseus enough to dwell there unharmed. You will walk on all fours, you are tipping down onto your front limbs already, and will soon begin to grunt – beware!”

203. “Consider your self-respect, your pride. Do not lose yourself in an alien world. Avoid that swamp, that isle of Circe – for you are not Odysseus enough to dwell there unharmed. You will walk on all fours, you are tipping down onto your front limbs already, and will soon begin to grunt – beware!”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Knowledge never hurts.”

204. “Knowledge never hurts.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Freedom exists, and also the will exists; but the freedom of the will does not exist, for a will that aims at its own freedom aims at the unknown.”

205. “Freedom exists, and also the will exists; but the freedom of the will does not exist, for a will that aims at its own freedom aims at the unknown.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Even if you do have designs on my cash, and send me down to Pluto with a blow of your oar from behind, you will have rowed me well.”

206. “Even if you do have designs on my cash, and send me down to Pluto with a blow of your oar from behind, you will have rowed me well.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “It’s a craving that shouldn’t even exist, and yet you can’t wish it didn’t exist. Once it has hold of you, you can’t wish it away, because you’d have to wish your life away, it’s so bound up with it, and you can’t do that – what good would dying do? Afterward – with pleasure. In her arms – only too gladly. But before? That’s nonsense, because life is desire, and desire is life, and life can’t be its own enemy.”

207. “It’s a craving that shouldn’t even exist, and yet you can’t wish it didn’t exist. Once it has hold of you, you can’t wish it away, because you’d have to wish your life away, it’s so bound up with it, and you can’t do that – what good would dying do? Afterward – with pleasure. In her arms – only too gladly. But before? That’s nonsense, because life is desire, and desire is life, and life can’t be its own enemy.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “It would lead him back, restore him to himself, but there is nothing so distasteful as being restored to oneself when one is beside oneself.”

208. “It would lead him back, restore him to himself, but there is nothing so distasteful as being restored to oneself when one is beside oneself.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Habituation is a falling asleep or fatiguing of the sense of time; which explains why young years pass slowly, while later life flings itself faster and faster upon its course. We.”

209. “Habituation is a falling asleep or fatiguing of the sense of time; which explains why young years pass slowly, while later life flings itself faster and faster upon its course. We.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Very well can love come out of evil, and out of disorder something ordered for the best.”

210. “Very well can love come out of evil, and out of disorder something ordered for the best.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “A hell hound is coming. Howling. A huge explosive shell. A disgusting sugarloaf from the infernal regions.”

211. “A hell hound is coming. Howling. A huge explosive shell. A disgusting sugarloaf from the infernal regions.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Art’s vital need for revolutionary progress and achievement of the new depends on the vehicle of the strongest subjective sense for what is hackneyed, for what has nothing more to say, for those standard, normal means that have now become ‘impossible’.”

212. “Art’s vital need for revolutionary progress and achievement of the new depends on the vehicle of the strongest subjective sense for what is hackneyed, for what has nothing more to say, for those standard, normal means that have now become ‘impossible’.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “What is success? A mysterious, indescribable power – a vigilance, a readiness, the awareness that simply by my presence I can exert pressure on the movements of life around me, the belief that life can be molded to my advantage.”

213. “What is success? A mysterious, indescribable power – a vigilance, a readiness, the awareness that simply by my presence I can exert pressure on the movements of life around me, the belief that life can be molded to my advantage.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Now and then some one came up to little Johann, put an arm across his shoulders, and looked at his presents with the overdone, cynical admiration which people manufacture for the treasures of children.”

214. “Now and then some one came up to little Johann, put an arm across his shoulders, and looked at his presents with the overdone, cynical admiration which people manufacture for the treasures of children.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “I know that the external, visible, tangible tokens and symbols of happiness and success first appear only after things have in reality gone into decline already. Such external signs need time to reach us, like the light of one of those stars up there, which when it shines most brightly may well have already gone out, for all we know.”

215. “I know that the external, visible, tangible tokens and symbols of happiness and success first appear only after things have in reality gone into decline already. Such external signs need time to reach us, like the light of one of those stars up there, which when it shines most brightly may well have already gone out, for all we know.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Laban, the clod, was very likely right when he said, in his sluggishness over the beer, that blessing was strength and life strength and nothing else. For it is vain superstition to think that the life of men of blessing is nothing but happiness and shallow well-being. For the blessing is in truth nothing but the basis of their existence, gleaming goldenly through a plenitude of affliction and trial.”

216. “Laban, the clod, was very likely right when he said, in his sluggishness over the beer, that blessing was strength and life strength and nothing else. For it is vain superstition to think that the life of men of blessing is nothing but happiness and shallow well-being. For the blessing is in truth nothing but the basis of their existence, gleaming goldenly through a plenitude of affliction and trial.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “But the disease makes him ailing within and fevered without; disease makes men more physical, it leaves them nothing but body.”

217. “But the disease makes him ailing within and fevered without; disease makes men more physical, it leaves them nothing but body.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Aschenbach noticed with astonishment the lad’s perfect beauty. His faced recalled the noblest moment of Greek sculpture – pale, with a sweet reserve, with clustering honey-coloured ringlets, the brow and nose descending in one line, the winning mouth, the expression of pure and godlike serenity. Yet with all this chaste perfection of form it was of such unique personal charm that the observer though he had never seen, either in nature or art, anything so utterly happy and consummate.”

218. “Aschenbach noticed with astonishment the lad’s perfect beauty. His faced recalled the noblest moment of Greek sculpture – pale, with a sweet reserve, with clustering honey-coloured ringlets, the brow and nose descending in one line, the winning mouth, the expression of pure and godlike serenity. Yet with all this chaste perfection of form it was of such unique personal charm that the observer though he had never seen, either in nature or art, anything so utterly happy and consummate.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “He tried putting himself in Herr Albin’s shoes and imagining how it must be when one is finally free of all the pressures honor brings and one can endlessly enjoy the unbounded advantages of disgrace –.”

219. “He tried putting himself in Herr Albin’s shoes and imagining how it must be when one is finally free of all the pressures honor brings and one can endlessly enjoy the unbounded advantages of disgrace –.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Once in my life I had pomegranate juice and soda; it was too sweet.”

220. “Once in my life I had pomegranate juice and soda; it was too sweet.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Sky, earth, and sea were still lying in the ghostly and glassy pallor of daybreak; a fading star was still floating in unreality.”

221. “Sky, earth, and sea were still lying in the ghostly and glassy pallor of daybreak; a fading star was still floating in unreality.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “They forced everything to an issue, these two and wrangled bitter over extremes, whereas it seemed as though somewhere between two intolerable positions, between bombastic humanism and analphabetic barbarism,, must lie something which one might personally call the human.”

222. “They forced everything to an issue, these two and wrangled bitter over extremes, whereas it seemed as though somewhere between two intolerable positions, between bombastic humanism and analphabetic barbarism,, must lie something which one might personally call the human.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “The policy are to be commended.′ Aschenbach replied, and after a brief exchange of meteorological observations the manager excused himself.”

223. “The policy are to be commended.′ Aschenbach replied, and after a brief exchange of meteorological observations the manager excused himself.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “But beauty, too, is never perfected and for that very reason incites to vanity; for beauty works hard to achieve what it finds lacking in its own self-imposed ideal – yet another error, for beauty’s secret actually consists in the attraction that comes from imperfection.”

224. “But beauty, too, is never perfected and for that very reason incites to vanity; for beauty works hard to achieve what it finds lacking in its own self-imposed ideal – yet another error, for beauty’s secret actually consists in the attraction that comes from imperfection.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Verily it is well for the world that it sees only the beauty of the completed work and not its origins nor the conditions whence it sprang; since knowledge of the artist’s inspiration might often but confuse and alarm and so prevent the full effect of its excellence.”

225. “Verily it is well for the world that it sees only the beauty of the completed work and not its origins nor the conditions whence it sprang; since knowledge of the artist’s inspiration might often but confuse and alarm and so prevent the full effect of its excellence.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “They let him be. He was like the scholar in the peculiarly happy state of never being “asked” any more; of never having a task, of being left to sit, since the fact of his being left behind is established, and no one troubles about him further – an orgiastic kind of freedom, but we ask ourselves whether, indeed, freedom ever is or can be of any other kind.”

226. “They let him be. He was like the scholar in the peculiarly happy state of never being “asked” any more; of never having a task, of being left to sit, since the fact of his being left behind is established, and no one troubles about him further – an orgiastic kind of freedom, but we ask ourselves whether, indeed, freedom ever is or can be of any other kind.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Is it possible for a man to become blind, or as nearly blind as Yitzhak was in his old age, because he does not like to see, because seeing is a torture to him, because he feels better in a darkness in which certain things can happen because they must happen? I do not assert that such a cause could have such a result, but only that the causes were present.”

227. “Is it possible for a man to become blind, or as nearly blind as Yitzhak was in his old age, because he does not like to see, because seeing is a torture to him, because he feels better in a darkness in which certain things can happen because they must happen? I do not assert that such a cause could have such a result, but only that the causes were present.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “That service he loved, had even almost come to love the enervating daily struggle between a proud, tenacious, well-tried will and this growing fatigue, which no on must suspect, nor the finished product betray by any faintest sign that his inspiration could ever flag or miss fire.”

228. “That service he loved, had even almost come to love the enervating daily struggle between a proud, tenacious, well-tried will and this growing fatigue, which no on must suspect, nor the finished product betray by any faintest sign that his inspiration could ever flag or miss fire.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “I never can understand how anybody can not smoke – it deprives a man of the best part of life, so to speak – or at least of a first-class pleasure. When I wake in the morning, I feel glad at the thought of being able to smoke all day, and when I eat, I look forward to smoking afterwards; I might almost say I only eat for the sake of being able to smoke –.”

229. “I never can understand how anybody can not smoke – it deprives a man of the best part of life, so to speak – or at least of a first-class pleasure. When I wake in the morning, I feel glad at the thought of being able to smoke all day, and when I eat, I look forward to smoking afterwards; I might almost say I only eat for the sake of being able to smoke –.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Great words, being worn out, do a poor job of expressing the extraordinary. This is better accomplished by using ordinary words to the uttermost extent of their meaning.”

230. “Great words, being worn out, do a poor job of expressing the extraordinary. This is better accomplished by using ordinary words to the uttermost extent of their meaning.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought – these are the artist’s highest joy. And our solitary protagonist felt in himself at this moment power to command and wield a thought that thrilled with emotion, an emotion as precise and concentrated as thought: namely, that nature herself shivers with ecstasy when the mind bows down in homage before beauty.”

231. “Thought that can merge wholly into feeling, feeling that can merge wholly into thought – these are the artist’s highest joy. And our solitary protagonist felt in himself at this moment power to command and wield a thought that thrilled with emotion, an emotion as precise and concentrated as thought: namely, that nature herself shivers with ecstasy when the mind bows down in homage before beauty.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “In truth, they were all admirable scholars, the masters who taught in the cloisters of the old school – once a monastic foundation – under the guidance of a kindly, snuff-taking old head. They were, to a man, well-meaning and sweet- humoured; and they were one in the belief that knowledge and good cheer are not mutually exclusive.”

232. “In truth, they were all admirable scholars, the masters who taught in the cloisters of the old school – once a monastic foundation – under the guidance of a kindly, snuff-taking old head. They were, to a man, well-meaning and sweet- humoured; and they were one in the belief that knowledge and good cheer are not mutually exclusive.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “I shouldn’t be speaking of the present, but rather, perhaps, of the future. When you as Madame So-and-So finally vanish into your proper sphere, one is left to sit on the rocks all the rest of one’s life.”

233. “I shouldn’t be speaking of the present, but rather, perhaps, of the future. When you as Madame So-and-So finally vanish into your proper sphere, one is left to sit on the rocks all the rest of one’s life.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “But it seems a noble and active mind blunts itself against nothing so quickly as the sharp and bitter irritant of knowledge.”

234. “But it seems a noble and active mind blunts itself against nothing so quickly as the sharp and bitter irritant of knowledge.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “What is time? A mystery, a figment – and all-powerful.”

235. “What is time? A mystery, a figment – and all-powerful.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “How can a man be worthy as an educator if he have a natural, incorrigible penchant for the abyss? Much as we renounce it and seek dignity, we are drawn to it.”

236. “How can a man be worthy as an educator if he have a natural, incorrigible penchant for the abyss? Much as we renounce it and seek dignity, we are drawn to it.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “For he was by nature and temperament passive, could sit without occupation hours on end, and loved, as we know, to see time spacious before him, and not to have the sense of its passing banished, wiped out or eaten up by prosaic activity.”

237. “For he was by nature and temperament passive, could sit without occupation hours on end, and loved, as we know, to see time spacious before him, and not to have the sense of its passing banished, wiped out or eaten up by prosaic activity.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “The tragedy of Rachel is the tragedy of valour rejected.”

238. “The tragedy of Rachel is the tragedy of valour rejected.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state.”

239. “Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from our surroundings and giving us back our primitive, unattached state.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “God is spirit, and above languages is language.”

240. “God is spirit, and above languages is language.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “It always happens that, directly it has been found wanting and discarded by the poets and philosophers, there comes along a King to whom it is a perfectly new idea, and who makes it a guiding principle. That is what kings are like. It is not only that kings are men – they are even very distinctly average men; they are always a good way in the rear.”

241. “It always happens that, directly it has been found wanting and discarded by the poets and philosophers, there comes along a King to whom it is a perfectly new idea, and who makes it a guiding principle. That is what kings are like. It is not only that kings are men – they are even very distinctly average men; they are always a good way in the rear.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Vacuity, monotony, have, indeed, the property of lingering out the moment and the hour and of making them tiresome.”

242. “Vacuity, monotony, have, indeed, the property of lingering out the moment and the hour and of making them tiresome.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “It seems to me, however, that despite the logical, moral rigor music may appear to display, it belongs to a world of spirits, for whose absolute reliability in matters of human reason and dignity I would not exactly want to put my hand in the fire. That I am nevertheless devoted to it with all my heart is one of those contradictions which, whether a cause for joy or regret, are inseparable from human nature.”

243. “It seems to me, however, that despite the logical, moral rigor music may appear to display, it belongs to a world of spirits, for whose absolute reliability in matters of human reason and dignity I would not exactly want to put my hand in the fire. That I am nevertheless devoted to it with all my heart is one of those contradictions which, whether a cause for joy or regret, are inseparable from human nature.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “El arte es vida potenciada.”

244. “El arte es vida potenciada.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “God help our darkened and desecrated country and teach it to make its peace with the world and with itself!”

245. “God help our darkened and desecrated country and teach it to make its peace with the world and with itself!”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “Thus ungrateful is immature youth! It takes all that is offered, and bites the hand that feeds it.”

246. “Thus ungrateful is immature youth! It takes all that is offered, and bites the hand that feeds it.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “How good, he thinks, that she breathes in oblivion with every breath she draws! That in childhood each night is a deep wide gulf between one day and the next.”

247. “How good, he thinks, that she breathes in oblivion with every breath she draws! That in childhood each night is a deep wide gulf between one day and the next.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “The servants’ bare soles were inaudible on the matted floors, and the speech of Petepre and his kin was infrequent and soft-voiced from mutual respect. They bent tactfully toward each other, and in the pauses between courses held to each other’s noses a lotus flower, or some dainty morsel to each other’s mouths. Their mutual gentleness was exquisite, it was almost painful.”

248. “The servants’ bare soles were inaudible on the matted floors, and the speech of Petepre and his kin was infrequent and soft-voiced from mutual respect. They bent tactfully toward each other, and in the pauses between courses held to each other’s noses a lotus flower, or some dainty morsel to each other’s mouths. Their mutual gentleness was exquisite, it was almost painful.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “When the moral courage to make decisions and distinctions between reality and deception degenerates to that point, then there is an end of life, of judgement, of the creative deed: the process of decay sets in, moral scepsis, and does its deadly work.”

249. “When the moral courage to make decisions and distinctions between reality and deception degenerates to that point, then there is an end of life, of judgement, of the creative deed: the process of decay sets in, moral scepsis, and does its deadly work.”

— Thomas Mann

Thomas Mann Quote: “And this whole sunny region – these easily scaled coastal heights, these laughing rock-bound pools, and the sea itself, as far as the islands where boats sailed past now and then – was populated in all directions: people, children of the sea and sun, were stirring and resting everywhere, intelligent, cheerful, beautiful, young humanity, so fair to gaze upon. And at the sight, Hans Castorp’s whole heart opened wide – painfully, lovingly wide.”

250. “And this whole sunny region – these easily scaled coastal heights, these laughing rock-bound pools, and the sea itself, as far as the islands where boats sailed past now and then – was populated in all directions: people, children of the sea and sun, were stirring and resting everywhere, intelligent, cheerful, beautiful, young humanity, so fair to gaze upon. And at the sight, Hans Castorp’s whole heart opened wide – painfully, lovingly wide.”

— Thomas Mann

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