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Home
Authors
Elias Canetti
Swiss
Author
About the author
He who is obsessed by death is made guilty by it.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Death
The paranoiac is the exact image of the ruler. The only difference is their position in the world. One might even think the paranoiac the more impressive of the two because he is sufficient unto himself and cannot be shaken by failure.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#World
#Failure
#Difference
Whether or not God is dead: it is impossible to keep silent about him who was there for so long.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#God
Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Success
#Day
#Space
Success listens only to applause. To all else it is deaf.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Success
#Applause
Someone who always has to lie discovers that every one of his lies is true.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Lies
#Lie
The fear of burglars is not only the fear of being robbed, but also the fear of a sudden and unexpected clutch out of the darkness.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Fear
#Being
#Darkness
The great writers of aphorisms read as if they had all known each other well.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Writers
#Aphorisms
The planet's survival has become so uncertain that any effort, any thought that presupposes an assured future amounts to a mad gamble.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Thought
#Future
#Effort
#Survival
The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Order
#Thoughts
There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Time
#Study
#End
#Man
#Beginning
#Sight
There is no such thing as an ugly language. Today I hear every language as if it were the only one, and when I hear of one that is dying, it overwhelms me as though it were the death of the earth.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Death
#Today
#Earth
#Language
#Ugly
#Dying
There is nothing that man fears more than the touch of the unknown. He wants to see what is reaching towards him, and to be able to recognize or at least classify it. Man always tends to avoid physical contact with anything strange.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Nothing
#Man
Whenever you observe an animal closely, you feel as if a human being sitting inside were making fun of you.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Fun
#Being
Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Want
#War
#First
Words are not too old, only people are too old if they use the same words too frequently.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Words
#People
#Old
When you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Life
As if one could know the good a person is capable of, when one doesn't know the bad he might do.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Right
A "modern" man has nothing to add to modernism, if only because he has nothing to oppose it with. The well-adapted drop off the dead limb of time like lice.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Time
#Nothing
#Man
All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Dreams
#Help
Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#People
#Open
#Eyes
#Decision
#Misfortune
#Disaster
His head is made of stars, but not yet arranged into constellations.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Stars
It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Idea
The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Writing
#Night
#Infinite
Most religions do not make men better, only warier.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Men
One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Life
People's fates are simplified by their names.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#People
#Names
One should use praise to recognize what one is not.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Praise
Adults find pleasure in deceiving a child. They consider it necessary, but they also enjoy it. The children very quickly figure it out and then practice deception themselves.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Children
#Practice
#Pleasure
#Deception
People love as self-recognition what they hate as an accusation.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Love
#People
#Self
#Hate
Justice requires that everyone should have enough to eat. But it also requires that everyone should contribute to the production of food.
Elias Canetti,
Swiss
Author
#Food
#Justice
#Production