Elias Canetti Quotes

In ogni essere umano si celano possibilità infinite, che non devono essere scatenate invano. Poiché è terribile quando l'intero uomo risuona di tanti echi, nessuno dei quali diventa una vera voce.

The hallucinations of alcoholics provide us with an opportunity to study crowds as they appear in the minds of individuals.

Um Livreiro pode ser um Rei, mas um Rei jamais será um Livreiro.

E, então, o tempo, o tempo verdadeiramente físico, não se orienta pelo relógio; ele é antes, e no mais das vezes, uma função da atmosfera na qual transcorre. É, portanto, extraordinariamente difícil determinar, mesmo aproximadamente, quando um se juntou de fato à companhia dos outros, quando o outro se levantou e quando o terceiro realmente partiu.

"THE CROWD, suddenly there where there was nothing before, is a mysterious and universal phenomenon. A few people may have been standing together-five, ten or twelve, not more; nothing has been announced, nothing is expected. Suddenly everywhere is black with people and more come streaming from all sides as though streets had only one direction. Most of them do not know what has happened and, if questioned, have no answer; but they hurry to be there where most other people are. There is a determination in their movement which is quite different from the expression of ordinary curiosity. It seems as though the movement of some of them transmits itself to the others. But that is not all; they have a goal which is there before they can find words for it." (16)

Важно е от време на време да се чувстваш засегнат, да се видиш такъв, какъвто те виждат ония, които нищо не разбират.

The Englishman likes to imagine himself at sea, the German in a forest. It is impossible to express the difference of their national feeling more concisely.

In the hierarchy of man's activities, eating was the lowest. Eating had become the object of a cult, but in fact it was but the preliminary to other, utterly contemptible motions. It occurred to him that he wanted to perform one of these too.

Vom Zufall des Gelesenen hängt es ab, was du bist.

Fear thrives strongest; there is no telling how little we would be without having suffered fear. An intrinsic characteristic of humanity is the tendency to give in to fear. No fear is lost, but its hiding places are a riddle. Perhaps, of all things, fear is the one that changes least.

There is, in Kafka, a sort of sleep-worship; he regards sleep as a panacea.

Books have no life; they lack feeling maybe, and perhaps cannot feel pain, as animals and even plants feel -pain. But what proof have we that inorganic objects can feel no pain? Who knows if a book may not yearn for other books, its companions of many years, in some way strange to us and therefore never yet perceived? Every thinking being knows those moments in which the traditional frontier set by science between the organic and the inorganic, seems artificial and outdated, like every frontier drawn by men. Is not a secret antagonism to this division revealed in the very phrase 'dead matter' ? For the dead must once have been the living. Let us admit then of a substance that it is dead, have we not in so doing endowed it with an erstwhile life.

Contudo, o sentimento em relação às terras distantes permanece, e o interesse por elas jamais arrefece. Assim, o homem cavouca, insaciável, em épocas passadas e em culturas desconhecidas. A rigidez da própria existência aumenta, e essas épocas e culturas oferecem o instrumento inesgotável para a transformação.

For a good part of his [Kafka's] work consists of tentative steps toward perpetually changing possibilities of future. He does not acknowledge a single future, there are many; this multiplicity of futures paralyzes him and burdens his step.

Del azar de lo leído depende lo que eres