Robert Musil quotes - page 2

The thought came to me that all one loves in art becomes beautiful. Beauty is nothing but the expression of the fact that something is being loved. Only thus could she be defined. (Robert Musil)
All still lifes are actually paintings of the world on the sixth day of creation, when God and the world were alone together, without man! View quote
Robert Musil
Life is to blame for everything. View quote
Robert Musil
The thoughts of my emotionally so disturbed days must be found again, shifted and developed further. Here and there something of the loose remarks I make must be used, but only when it finds my attention again. View quote
Robert Musil
Philosophers are people who do violence, but have no army at their disposal, and so subjugate the world by locking it into a system. View quote
Robert Musil
Time, which runs through the world like an endless tinsel thread, seemed to pass through the centre of this room and through the centre of these people and suddenly to pause and petrify, stiff, still and glittering... and the objects in the room drew a little closer together. View quote
Robert Musil
What is the use of good painting? We want a spell cast upon the optical part of our existence! We seldom really see the world, but when we do, we become as still as a picture. View quote
Robert Musil
Only in the most unusual cases is it useful to determine whether a book is good or bad; for it is just as rare for it to be one or the other. It is usually both. View quote
Robert Musil
Believe me, what makes the human being truly free, and what takes away his freedom, what gives him true bliss and what destroys it, isn't subject to 'progress'--it is something every genuinely alive person knows perfectly well in his own heart, if he will just listen to it! View quote
Robert Musil
True' and 'false' are the evasions of people who never want to arrive at a decision. Truth is something without end. View quote
Robert Musil
The difference between a healthy person and one who is mentally ill is the fact that the healthy one has all the mental illnesses, and the mentally ill person has only one. (Robert Musil)
The difference between a normal person and an insane one is precisely that the normal person has all the diseases of the mind, while the madman has only one! View quote
Robert Musil
Today I start a diary; it is against my usual habbits, but out of a clearly felt need. View quote
Robert Musil