Robert Musil

Every word wants to be taken literally, else it decays into a lie. But one mustn't take any word literally, else the…

— Robert Musil

“Philosophers are despots who have no armies to command, so they subject the world to their tyranny by locking it up in…

— Robert Musil

All still lifes are actually paintings of the world on the sixth day of creation, when God and the world were alone…

— Robert Musil

“A motorcyclist rode down the empty street, arms and legs rounded in an O, and came back up with the sound of…

— Robert Musil

... nothing is more human than substituting the quantity of words and actions for their character. But using imprecise words is very…

— Robert Musil

Philosophers are people who do violence, but have no army at their disposal, and so subjugate the world by locking it into…

— Robert Musil

The secret of a good librarian is that he never reads anything more of the literature in his charge than the title…

— Robert Musil

To love something as an artist ... means to be shaken not by its ultimate value or lack of value, but by…

— Robert Musil

Scientific reason, with its strict conscience, its lack of prejudice, and its determination to question every result again the moment it might…

— Robert Musil

“For a long time now a hint of aversion had lain on everything he did and experienced, a shadow of impotence and…

— Robert Musil

and while faith based on theological reasoning is today universally engaged in a bitter struggle with doubt and resistance from the prevailing…

— Robert Musil

It will always be the same possibilities, in sum or on the average, that go on repeating themselves until a man comes…

— Robert Musil

“Slowed down by a sense of hopelessness in all his decisions and movements, he suffered from bitter sadness, and his incapacity solidified…

— Robert Musil

“There were moments when life at school became a matter of utter indifference to him. Then the putty of his everyday concerns…

— Robert Musil

A particularly fine head on a man usually means that he is stupid; particularly deep philosophers are usually shallow thinkers; in literature,…

— Robert Musil

The thought is not something that observes an inner event, but, rather it is this inner event itself. We do not reflect…

— Robert Musil

On this thin, scarcely real and yet so perceptible sensation the whole world hung as on a faintly trembling axis, and this…

— Robert Musil

Writing [for the novelist] is not an activity, but a condition. That is why one simply can't resume the work when one…

— Robert Musil

“The world seems almost physically wider when up to just now the right-hand side was always obscured by the proximity of someone…

— Robert Musil