A tormenting thought: as of a certain point, history was no longer real. Without noticing it, all mankind suddenly left reality; everything happening since then was supposedly not true; but we supposedly didn't notice. Our task would now be to find that point, and as long as we didn't have it, we would be forced to abide in our present destruction.
history mankind reality
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About This Quote

About Elias Canetti

Elias Canetti was a 20th-century German language author. Elias Canetti was a German-language writer, known as a modernist novelist, playwright, memoirist, and nonfiction writer. Born in Ruse, Bulgaria, to a Sephardic Jewish family, he later lived in England, Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Read more on Wikipedia →

Themes

  • History — Lessons from the past and the arc of human civilisation

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“All things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.”
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“Every command consists of momentum and sting. The momentum forces the recipient to act, and to act in accordance with the content of the command; the sting remains behind in him. When a command fun...”
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“Every command leaves behind a painful sting in the person who is forced to carry it out.”
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“The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation, and it seems most true when it eschews artistic devices of any sort.”
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