No man remains quite what he was when he recognizes himself.

vision recognition enlightenment

About Thomas Mann

Portrait of Thomas Mann

Paul Thomas Mann (6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas are noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and...

More quotations from Thomas Mann

Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily—no, hourly—and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither greeting nor addressing each other, whether out of etiquette or their own whim.

silence relationship communication strangers

One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.

It is love, not reason, that is stronger than death.

love strength death immortality

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.

difficulty writing

A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth.

truth opposites

More quotations tagged with “enlightenment”

Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It's seeing through the facade of pretense. It's the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.

truth destruction happiness enlightenment untruth

Freedom in not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of these, for without it we can have neither security nor prosperity nor enlightenment.

—Henry Steele Commager in Freedom, Loyalty, Dissent

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A person who says, "I'm enlightened," probably isn't.

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Enlightenment is not an attainment; it is a realization. When you wake up, everything changes and nothing changes. If a blind man realizes that he can see, has the world changed?

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Who cares if you're enlightened forever? Can you just get it in this moment, now?

now moment forever enlightenment

History

20 May 2016 Added