Death in Venice

by Thomas Mann

Preoccupied with the tasks imposed upon him by his ego and the European psyche, overburdened by the obligation to produce, averse to diversion, and no lover of the external world and its variety, he was quite content with the view of the earth’s surface that anyone can gain without stirring far from home, and never so much as tempted to venture beyond Europe.

On a personal level, too, art is life intensified: it delights more deeply, consumes more rapidly; it engraves the traces of imaginary and intellectual adventure on the countenance of its servant and in the long run, for all the monastic calm of his external existence, leads to self-indulgence, overrefinement, lethargy, and a restless curiosity that a lifetime of wild passions and pleasures could scarcely engender.

For a man loves and respects his fellow man only insofar as he is unable to assess him, and longing is a product of insufficient knowledge.