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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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Elias Canetti
Age: 89 †
Born: 1905
Born: July 25
Died: 1994
Died: August 14
Aphorist
Author
Chemist
Essayist
Novelist
Playwright
Writer
Rousse
Elías Canetti
Happened
History
Everything
Come
Portrays
Otherwise
Side
Sides

More quotes by Elias Canetti

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Beauty always has something remote.
Elias Canetti
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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.
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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Justice requires that everyone should have enough to eat. But it also requires that everyone should contribute to the production of food.
Elias Canetti
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I try to imagine someone saying to Shakespeare, 'Relax!
Elias Canetti
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The act of naming is the great and solemn consolation of mankind
Elias Canetti
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Words are not too old, only people are too old if they use the same words too frequently.
Elias Canetti
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I want to keep smashing myself until I am whole.
Elias Canetti
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Death is a scandal. The machine is functioning, we are all hostages
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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The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else.
Elias Canetti
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One should not confuse the craving for life with endorsement of it.
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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Learning is the art of ignoring.
Elias Canetti
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Someone who always has to lie discovers that every one of his lies is true
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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It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.
Elias Canetti
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Of all the words in all languages I know, the greatest concentration is in the English word I.
Elias Canetti
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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.
Elias Canetti
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There emanates from superlatives a destructive force.
Elias Canetti