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As if one could know the good a person is capable of, when one doesn't know the bad he might do.

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
Might
Good
Capability
Goodness
Capable
Literature
Doesn
Persons
Person

More quotes by Elias Canetti

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There can be no Creator, simply because his grief at the fate of his creation would be inconceivable and unendurable.
Elias Canetti
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Everything one records contains a grain of hope, no matter how deeply it may come from despair.
Elias Canetti
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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.
Elias Canetti
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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.
Elias Canetti
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Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?
Elias Canetti
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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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...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?
Elias Canetti
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One should use praise to recognize what one is not.
Elias Canetti
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One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it.
Elias Canetti
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Explain nothing. Put it there. Say it. Leave.
Elias Canetti
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History portrays everything as if it could not have come otherwise. History is on the side of what happened.
Elias Canetti
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I want to keep smashing myself until I am whole.
Elias Canetti
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There emanates from superlatives a destructive force.
Elias Canetti
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Pessimists are not boring. Pessimists are right. Pessimists are superfluous.
Elias Canetti
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Whether or not God is dead: it is impossible to keep silent about him who was there for so long.
Elias Canetti
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He would like to start from scratch. Where is scratch?
Elias Canetti
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Success is the space one occupies in the newspaper. Success is one day's insolence.
Elias Canetti
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The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else.
Elias Canetti
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Rulers who want to unleash war know very well that they must procure or invent a first victim.
Elias Canetti
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Learning is the art of ignoring.
Elias Canetti