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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

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Elias Canetti
Age: 89 †
Born: 1905
Born: July 25
Died: 1994
Died: August 14
Aphorist
Author
Chemist
Essayist
Novelist
Playwright
Writer
Rousse
Elías Canetti
Men
Physical
Fears
Strange
Unknown
Wants
Reaching
Least
Contact
Anything
Avoid
Able
Recognize
Nothing
Towards
Classify
Always
Touch
Tends

More quotes by Elias Canetti

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The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else.
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History portrays everything as if it could not have come otherwise. History is on the side of what happened.
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Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.
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One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it.
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The act of naming is the great and solemn consolation of mankind
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I want to keep smashing myself until I am whole.
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One has a prejudice wherever one fears a transformation.
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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.
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It is only in a crowd that man can become free of this fear of being touched. That is the only situation in which the fear changes into its opposite… The reversal of fear of being touched belongs to the nature of crowds. The feeling of relief is most striking where the density of the crowd is greatest
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There can be no Creator, simply because his grief at the fate of his creation would be inconceivable and unendurable.
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I try to imagine someone saying to Shakespeare, 'Relax!
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Of all the words in all languages I know, the greatest concentration is in the English word I.
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Everything one records contains a grain of hope, no matter how deeply it may come from despair.
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Whenever you observe an animal closely, you feel as if a human being sitting inside were making fun of you.
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...how could I, fool that I am, go on sitting in my office, or here at home, instead of leaping onto a train with my eyes shut and opening them only when I am with you?
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I would like to become tolerant without overlooking anything, persecute no one even when all people persecute me become better without noticing it become sadder, but enjoy living become more serene, be happy in others belong to no one, grow in everyone love the best, comfort the worst not even hate myself anymore.
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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.
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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.
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The self- explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else. He learns to see himself, but suddenly, provided he was honest, all the rest appears, and it is as rich as he was, and, as a final crowning, richer.
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There emanates from superlatives a destructive force.
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