Old Masters: A Comedy (Penguin Modern Classics)

by Thomas Bernhard

We can only stand a great, important picture if we have turned it into a caricature, or a great man, a so-called important personality, neither can we bear a person as a great man or as an important personality, he said, we have to caricature him.

Admiration makes a person blind, Reger said yesterday, it makes the admirers dull-witted. Most people, once they have got into admiration never get out of admiration again, and that makes them dull-witted. Most people are dull-witted all their lives solely because they keep admiring.

But because people find respect and esteem too difficult for them they admire, that comes cheaper for them, Reger said. Admiration is easier than respect, admiration is the characteristic of the dimwit, Reger said. Only a dimwit admires, the intelligent person does not admire but respects, esteems, understands, that is it. But respect and esteem and understanding require a mind, and a mind is what people do not have, without a mind and in fact totally mindlessly they travel to the pyramids