Disease was a perverse, a dissolute form of life. - Thomas Mann

His love of the sea had profound roots: the hardworking artist's desire to rest, his longing to get away from the demanding diversity of phenomena and take shelter in the bosom of simplicity and immensity; a forbidden penchant that was entirely antithetical to his mission and, for that very reason, seductive-a proclivity for the unorganized, the immeasurable, the eternal: for nothingness.

Time cools, time clarifies, no mood can be maintained quite unaltered through the course of hours. In the early dawn, standing weapon in hand, neither of the combatants would be the same man as on the evening of the quarrel. They would be going through it, if at all, mechanically, in obedience to the demands of honour, not, as they would have at first, of their own free will, desire, and conviction; and such a denial of their actual selves in favour of their past ones, it must somehow be possible to prevent.

I ako je lično shvatimo, umetnost je povišen život. Ona usrećuje dublje, ona troši brže. U lice svoga sluge ona reže tragove umišljenih i duhovnih doživljaja, i vremenom, čak i kada mu je spoljni život manastirski miran, stvara kod njega toliku razneženost, prefinjenost, zamor i radoznalost živaca da bi to jedva mogao stvoriti život pun razuzdanih strasti uživanja.