It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.

Quote by Thomas Mann

Topics: Thomas Mann Quotes

Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from...

Space, like time, engenders forgetfulness; but it does so by setting us bodily free from...

Human reason needs only to will more strongly than fate, and she is fate.

Human reason needs only to will more strongly than fate, and she is fate.

What we call mourning for our dead is perhaps not so much grief at not...

What we call mourning for our dead is perhaps not so much grief at not...

Reduced to a miserable mass level, the level of a Hitler, German Romanticism broke out...

Reduced to a miserable mass level, the level of a Hitler, German Romanticism broke out...

What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history...

What we call National-Socialism is the poisonous perversion of ideas which have a long history...

The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an...

The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an...

One has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of...

One has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of...

Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential youthfulness.

Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential youthfulness.

He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.

He who loves the more is the inferior and must suffer.

A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which...

A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which...

Culture and possessions, there is the bourgeoisie for you.

Culture and possessions, there is the bourgeoisie for you.

We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well...

We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well...

I shall need to sleep three weeks on end to get rested from the rest...

I shall need to sleep three weeks on end to get rested from the rest...

Disease makes men more physical, it leaves them nothing but body.

Disease makes men more physical, it leaves them nothing but body.

The Freudian theory is one of the most important foundation stones for an edifice to...

The Freudian theory is one of the most important foundation stones for an edifice to...

Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I heard my family...

Respectable means rich, and decent means poor. I should die if I heard my family...

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other...

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other...

Speech is civilization itself.

Speech is civilization itself.

The writer's joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly...

The writer's joy is the thought that can become emotion, the emotion that can wholly...

I never can understand how anyone can not smoke it deprives a man of the...

I never can understand how anyone can not smoke it deprives a man of the...