The fact is that everyone is much too busily preoccupied with himself to be able to form a serious opinion about another person. The indolent world i… - Thomas Mann

The anti-human, dictatorial mentality of our day ignores “ original sin,” or what may be called spiritual conscience. It considers the consciousness of sin, or spirituality, as injurious to military prowess. It teaches optimistic heroics — in direct and stupid contradiction of the extreme contempt for humanity, which it exalts in the same breath.

We come out of darkness and return to darkness, with some experiences in between. But we don’t experience the beginning and the end, birth and death. We are not subjectively aware of them, they exist only in the world of objective events — and that’s that.

You will lead, you will strike up the march of the future, boys will swear by your name, and thanks to your madness they will no longer need to be mad.