Paul Thomas Mann, 1875 - 1955
Portrait by Carl Van Vechten (20 April 1937)
Born: 6 June 1875, L
Died: 12 August 1955, Z
Mann's father, a senator and grain merchant, died in 1891 and mother and son moved to Munich, although Mann returned to Lübeck for gymnasium. Preparing for a career in journalism he studied at the Ludwig Maximillians University and the Technical University of Munich. He published his first story in 1898 and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for 1929. He was a strong supporter of Kaiser Wilhelm during the first world war but drifted to more liberal positions over time. He was an outspoken opponent of the National Socialists from 1930. He and his wife were on vacation in Switzerland when Hitler came to power, they didn't return home. The Nazis did not burn Mann's books, possibly out of respect for his Nobel, but revoked his citizenship in 1936. He was able to get a Czech passport and used it to emigrate in 1939 to the US where he taught at Princeton until 1942, then moved to Pacific Palisades, California. Mann recorded a series of anti-Nazi radio programs in the US, the tapes were broadcast by the BBC to reach German listeners. His was one of the main voices of the Exilliteratur, the German writers opposing Nazism from exile. He was naturalized a US citizen in 1944, he returned to Switzerland in 1952 for the rest of his life. Mann was bisexual, although it's not certain he consummated any of the homosexual feelings that were hinted at in his work and revealed when his diaries were unsealed after his death. He died of atherosclerosis.
Biography from Wikipedia and Nobel Foundation
Additional quotes from Wikiquote. Wikiquote entries are often "sourced" and may include items longer than those included here, particularly for poets, lyricists, and dramatists.
Thomas Mann quotes:
Quotes found : 85 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
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- A great truth is a truth whose opposite is also a truth. permalink
Thomas Mann - A harmful truth is better than a useful lie. permalink
Thomas Mann - A man lives not only his personal life, as an individual, but also, consciously or unconsciously, the life of his epoch and his contemporaries. permalink
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain (1924) - A man's dying is more the survivors' affair than his own. permalink
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain (1924) - A solitary, unused to speaking of what he sees and feels, has mental experiences which are at once more intense and less articulate than those of a gregarious man. permalink
Thomas Mann - A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. permalink
Thomas Mann - Essays of Three Decades (1942) - All interest in disease and death is only another expression of interest in life. permalink
Thomas Mann - The Magic Mountain (1924) - An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates. permalink
Thomas Mann - Speech at the Prussian Academy of Art in Berlin (22 January 1929) - Animals do not admire each other. A horse does not admire its companion. permalink
Thomas Mann - Art is the funnel, as it were, through which spirit is poured into life. permalink
Thomas Mann - Beauty can pierce one like pain. permalink
Thomas Mann - Buddenbrooks (1901) - But he would "stay the course" — it was his favorite motto. permalink
Thomas Mann - Death in Venice (1912) - But my deepest and most secret love belongs to the fair-haired and the blue-eyed, the bright children of life, the happy, the charming and the ordinary. permalink
Thomas Mann - Tonio Kröger (1903) - Culture and possessions, there is the bourgeoisie for you. permalink
Thomas Mann - Democracy is timelessly human, and timelessness always implies a certain amount of potential youthfulness. permalink
Thomas Mann - The Coming Victory of Democracy (1938)
Quotes found : 85 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 6) 1 2 3 4 5 6 Next
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