There were profound reasons for his attachment to the sea: he loved it because as a hardworking artist he needed rest, needed to escape from the demanding complexity of phenomena and lie hidden on the bosom of the simple and tremendous; because of a forbidden longing deep within him that ran quite contrary to his life's task and was for that very reason seductive, a longing for the unarticulated and immeasurable, for eternity, for nothingness. To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection? .Thomas Mann
About This Quote
When Albert Camus said, “There were profound reasons for his attachment to the sea: he loved it because as a hardworking artist he needed rest, needed to escape from the demanding complexity of phenomena and lie hidden on the bosom of the simple and tremendous; because of a forbidden longing deep within him that ran quite contrary to his life's task and was for that very reason seductive, a longing for the unarticulated and immeasurable, for eternity, for nothingness. To rest in the arms of perfection is the desire of any man intent upon creating excellence; and is not nothingness a form of perfection?” he was speaking about the power of being still. This is something that we all need from time to time.
Source: Death In Venice And Other Tales
Some Similar Quotes
- Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.
- It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.
- Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.
- Art and love are the same thing: It’s the process of seeing yourself in things that are not you.
- There is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
More Quotes By Thomas Mann
- It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.
- Nothing is more curious and awkward than the relationship of two people who only know each other with their eyes – who meet and observe each other daily, even hourly and who keep up the impression of disinterest either because of morals or because of...
- Forbearance in the face of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph.
- Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.
- He took in the squeaky music, the vulgar and pining melodies, because passion immobilizes good taste and seriously considers what soberly would be thought of as funny and to be resented.