The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.
Thomas MannRead
The Freudian theory is one of the most important foundation stones for an edifice to be built by future generations, the dwelling of a freer and wiser humanity.
Interpretation
The Freudian theory serves as a crucial basis for future understanding and progress in human knowledge.
In this quote, Thomas Mann highlights the significance of Freudian theory as a fundamental building block for future intellectual developments. He envisions a future where humanity is more enlightened and liberated, suggesting that the insights gained from Freud's work will help shape a wiser society.
In practice
In a psychology seminar, I quoted this to emphasize the importance of foundational theories.
The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.
Stupid β well, there are so many kinds of stupidity, and cleverness is one of the worst.
It is a strange fact that freedom and equality, the two basic ideas of democracy, are to some extent contradictory. Logically considered, freedom and equality are mutually exclusive, just as society and the individual are mutually exclusive.
I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.
Literature... is the union of suffering with the instinct for form.
One always has the idea of a stupid man as perfectly healthy and ordinary, and of illness as making one refined and clever and unusual.
Gay or straight? So what? It doesn't matter to me. We have to be concerned about other people regardless.
You know something I could really do without? The Space Shuttle. ... It's irresponsible. The last thing we should be doing is sending our grotesquely distorted DNA out into space.
Habitat has opened up unprecedented opportunities for me to cross the chasm that separates those of us who are free, safe, financially secure, well fed and housed, and influential enough to shape our own destiny from our neighbors who enjoy few, if any, of these advantages of life.
They that approve a private opinion, call it opinion; but they that dislike it, heresy; and yet heresy signifies no more than private opinion.
Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet.
When death comes, he respects neither age nor merit. He sweeps from the earthly existence the sick and the strong, the rich and the poor, and should teach us to live to be prepared for death.
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