Joseph and His Brothers Quotes

“At thirty a man steps out of the darkness and wasteland of preparation into active life it is the time to show oneself, the time of fulfillment.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Umreti, to, naravno, znači izgubiti vreme i otići iz njega, ali to ujedno znači steći večnost i trajnu sadašnjost, a to znači pravi život. Jer suština života je sadašnjost i njegova tajna predočava se samo na mitski način, u vremenskim formama prošlosti i budućnosti.

Ni lepota nikad nije savršena, te baš zbog toga i podstiče sujetu.

Kome je mnogo dato, tome može mnogo i da uzme. Ako me Gospod učini bogatim, on može i da me pretvori u zemni prah i da me učini siromahom poput nekog pogorelca; jer njegova ćud je silna i mi nismo u stanju da spoznamo puteve njegove pravednosti.

Gledao sam gore, to zacelo stoji! Posmatrao sam kako svetlost zrači, kako veličanstveno promiče, i moje su se ognjenim sunčevim strelama pozleđene oči krepile na blagom sjaju noćne zvezde.

Ja može svako da kaže, ali ko to kaže, to je bitno.

SETI SE MENE KAD BUDEŠ DOSPEO U SVOJE CARSTVO.

Čovek mora da vodi računa čime će se ukrasiti, mora da pripazi da se ne odluči za ono što mu ne pristaje.

Videti ne znači imati. Ali videti znači hteti imati.

Ili je život opsena, ili je lepota opsena. Nećeš oboje naći sjedinjeno u stvarnosti.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Die älteste Sprache, sagt man, sei das Indogermanische, Indo-europäische, das Sanskrit. Aber es ist so gut wie gewiß, daß das ein "Ur" ist, so vorschnell wie manches andere, und daß es eine wieder ältere Muttersprache gegeben hat, welche die Wurzeln der arischen sowohl wie auch der semitischen und chamitischen Mundarten in sich beschloß. Wahrscheinlich ist sie auf Atlantis gesprochen worden, dessen Silhouette die letzte im Fernendunst undeutlich noch sichtbare Vorbirgskulisse der Vergangenheit bildet, das aber selbst wohl kaum die Ur-Heimat des sprechenden Menschen ist.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“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, Joseph and His Brothers

“History is that which has happened and that which goes on happening in time. But it is also the stratified record upon which we set our feet, the ground beneath us, and the deeper the roots of our being go down into the layers that lie below and beyond the fleshly confines of our ego, yet at the same feed and condition it – so that in our moments of less precision we may speak of them in the first person and as though they were part of our flesh and blood experience – the heavier is our life with thought, the weightier is the soul of our flesh.”
― Thomas Mann , Joseph and His Brothers

“whoever tells a story wanders through many stations in his adventures, but only pitches a tent at each, waiting for further directions, and soon feels his own heart pounding, in part out of desire, but in part also out of fear and the apprehension in his bones, yet always as a sign that the road now opens onto new adventures that he must experience precisely, in all their incalculable detail, for that is the will of the restless spirit.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“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, Joseph and His Brothers

“Piety is the privatization of the world as the story of one’s self and one’s salvation, and without the, yes, sometimes offensive conviction that one is the object of God’s special, and indeed exclusive care, without the rearrangement that places oneself and one’s salvation at the center of all things, there is no piety—that is, in fact, what defines this very powerful virtue.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Από τις μέρες του Αδάμ και της Εύας, όταν ο ένας έγινε δύο, δεν μπόρεσε να ζήσει κανένας που δεν ήθελε να έρχεται στη θέση του πλησίον του και να αναγνωρίσει την αληθινή του κατάσταση προσπαθώντας να τη δει και με τα μάτια των άλλων. Η φαντασία και η τέχνη να μαντεύει κανείς τη συναισθηματική ζωή των άλλων, δηλαδή να τους συναισθάνεται, δεν είναι απλώς κάτι αξιέπαινο, καθόσον σπάζει το φράγμα του εγώ Μ, αλλά είναι και ένα μέσον αυτοσυντήρησης.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Μόνος, όπως ένας άντρας που σκοτώνει έναν εχθρό και με τη νίκη του παίρνει ασφαλώς τις ιδιότητες του ηττημένου και τις προσθέτει στις δικές του, έτσι και ο θεός, καθώς φαινόταν, σχίζοντας το τέρας του χάους ενσωμάτωσε μέσα του την ουσία του θεριού και ίσως μόνον έτσι έγινε πλήρης και τέλειος, μόνον έτσι απέκτησε το πλήρες μεγαλείο της ζωντάνιας του...Ο θεός δεν ήταν το καλό, αλλά το όλον. Και ήταν ιερός! Ιερός όχι λόγω καλοσύνης, αλλά λόγω ζωντάνιας και υπέρζωντάνιας, ιερός λόγω του μεγαλείου και του τρόμου που ενέπνεε, τρομακτικός και μυστηριώδης, επικίνδυνος και θανάσιμος, έτσι που μια παραδρομή, ένα λάθος, μια μικρή απροσεξία στη συμπεριφορά απέναντι σ' Εκείνον μπορούσε να έχει φρικτές συνέπειες.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Now for the first time he began to realise how lightly he had behaved in paying no heed to the prayers of his pure-minded little friend and, instead of avoiding the mistress, let it come to this, that his swan maiden was transformed witch. The folly of his pedagogic scheme struck him, for the first time he had a glimmer of the fact that his behaviour in the affair of his second life was not less culpable than his conduct toward the brethren. This insight, which was to ripen from a misgiving to a conviction, explains much that happened later.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“What was it had happened? Jacob had made a present to Joseph.
That was nothing new. The father in wilful indulgence to his feeling toward his son, his lamb, his scion, his heavenly youth and son of a virgin – or whatever other appellations might occur to him – had always made him gifts and tender remembrances, sweetmeats, pretty bits of pottery and stone, purple laces, scarabs and what not. Seeing them in his careless possession, the brothers would scowl. They would feel their rights curtailed and be aggrieved. To such fundamental and almost intentionally emphasised injustice they had had plenty of opportunity to accustom themselves.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“He was named Abiram, that is to say, "My father is exalted," or probably, just as correctly, "father of the exalted." For in a way Abraham was God's father. He had perceived Him and thought Him into being. The mighty properties which he ascribed to Him were probably God's original possession, Abraham was not their creator. But was he not so, after all, when he recognised them, preached them and by thinking made them real? The mighty properties of God were indeed something objective, existing outside of Abraham; but at the same time they were also in him and of him. The power of his own soul was at certain moments scarcely distinguishable from them, it interlaced and melted consciously into one with Him, and such was the origin of the bond which then the Lord struck with Abraham.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“The tragedy of Rachel is the tragedy of valour rejected.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Thou art so shrewd, and so false," he said wearily, "and I can make no head against thee, nor should anyone try since thou wilt but set him in the wrong. But when I look around me, I am as in a dream. All that I see is mine, daughters, children, flocks and waggons and beasts and men, they are mine, but have passed over into thy hands I know not how, and thou takest away all before mine eyes, till I am as in a dream.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“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, Joseph and His Brothers

“[of Jacob's twelve sons]:

Shepherds and sons of the steppe they were, running almost wild since infancy, ready with bow and knife, used to encounters with lions and wild bulls and also to brawling with strange herdsmen over pasture rights. Very little of Jacob's pensive piety had come down to them – their concerns were strictly practical, their minds full of the youthful spirit of defiance which forever looks for insults and seeks out quarrels. They were arrogantly proud of their race, though knowing naught of the spiritual nobility on which it's true greatness rested.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“And though when Esau left the mountains of Seir to meet the returned traveller, his mood may still have been very vacillating, unclear even to himself, by the time he once more after a lapse of twenty five years met his brother face to face, his spirits were of the highest.
However much Jacob may have set himself to effect it, he found this blitheness quite out of place, no sooner had he grasped the fact that for the moment at least he had nothing to fear than he found it hard to conceal his disgust at Esau's brainless goodheartedness.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“And though when Esau left the mountains of Seir to meet the returned traveller, his mood may still have been very vacillating, unclear even to himself, by the time he once more after a lapse of twenty five years met his brother face to face, his spirits were of the highest.
However much Jacob may have set himself to effect it, he found this blitheness quite out of place, no sooner had he grasped the fact that for the moment at least he had nothing to fear than he found to conceal his disgust at Esau's brainless goodheartedness.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“…For it was a community whose growth was not that of a family tree, but rather of a group of trees, resting as it did moreover in good part upon the propagation of the faith and the winning of souls. The tribal headship of the original Abraham must be understood as largely spiritual; whether Joseph was actually related to him in the flesh, whether he was indeed his forefather, and in such a direct line as is assumed, is open to question.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“(...) już jesteś głupi, że zmiłuj się Boże, głupi jak osioł, człowiek chciałby złoić ci skórę, a twoje myśli chodzą na czworakach z wywieszonym jęzorem (...)”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Jakiś dystyngowany lęk, że swymi pytaniami sprowokował zbyt wielką poufałość i dowie się czegoś, co go nic nie obchodzi, krzyżowała się w nim z już rozbudzoną ciekawością i uwagą, z pragnieniem, by się z tych ust dowiedzieć czegoś więcej.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Η εκδίκηση πρέπει να μην είναι στο χέρι του άντρα, διαφορετικά γεννοβολάει ασταμάτητα, βαρβάτη σαν τα κουνέλια, και ο κόσμος πνίγεται στο αίμα.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Σκέψου όμως ότι όλα είναι ζεύγη σε τούτο τον κόσμο, το καθετί έχει και το ταίρι του, για να μπορούμε να το ξεχωρίσουμε. Αν δεν υπήρχε κάθε φορά, πλάι στο ένα, και το αντίθετό του, δεν θα υπήρχε κανένα από τα δύο. Χωρίς τη ζωή δεν θα υπήρχε ο θάνατος, χωρίς τον πλούτο ούτε η φτώχεια, και αν εξαφανιζόταν η βλακεία, ποιος θα μιλούσε για εξυπνάδα; Το ίδιο συμβαίνει με την καθαρότητα και την ακαθαρσία, είναι ολοφάνερο. Το ακάθαρτο ζώο μιλάει στο καθαρό: "Μου χρωστάς ευγνωμοσύνη, γιατί, αν δεν υπήρχα εγώ, πως θα ήξερες ότι είσαι καθαρό και ποιος θα σε αποκαλούσε έτσι;" Και ο κακός λέει στον δίκαιο: "Πρέπει να πέσεις στα πόδια μου, γιατί χωρίς εμένα ποιά θα ήταν η υπεροχή σου;”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Είναι η απάτη των ευλογημένων, είναι ο τρόπος τους να εξαπατούν: πρέπει να φαίνονται μετριόφρονες ώστε οι άλλοι να λένε πιο φανερά ψέματα για να σταθούν.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers

“Από τις μέρες του Αδάμ και της Εύας, όταν ο ένας έγινε δύο, δεν μπόρεσε να ζήσει κανένας που δεν ήθελε να έρχεται στη θέση του πλησίον του και να αναγνωρίσει την αληθινή του κατάσταση προσπαθώντας να τη δει και με τα μάτια των άλλων. Η φαντασία και η τέχνη να μαντεύει κανείς τη συναισθηματική ζωή των άλλων, δηλαδή να τους συναισθάνεται, δεν είναι απλώς κάτι αξιέπαινο, καθόσον σπάζει το φράγμα του εγώ, αλλά είναι και ένα μέσον αυτοσυντήρησης.”
― Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers