Magic Mountain

by Thomas Mann

in the beginning of which so much began that has scarcely yet left off beginning.

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. Yes, it can even, in the twinkling of an eye, make something like a vagabond of the pedant and Philistine. Time, we say, is Lethe; but change of air is a similar draught, and, if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly.

Time, we say, is Lethe; but change of air is a similar draught, and, if it works less thoroughly, does so more quickly.

You can’t call it time—and you can’t call it living either!”

A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries.

a man who is capable of achievement over and above the average and expected modicum must be equipped either with a moral remoteness and single-mindedness which is rare indeed and of heroic mould,