The task of a writer consists of being able to make something out of an idea.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that society often views intelligence as a result of suffering, while normality is equated with ignorance.
In this reflection by Thomas Mann, he critiques the societal perceptions that associate intelligence and refinement with personal struggles and sickness, while depicting the 'ordinary' or 'healthy' person as lacking depth or insight. This perspective challenges the notion of what constitutes true intelligence and suggests that adversity may cultivate deeper understanding or wisdom that is often looked down upon by societal standards.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion on mental health, one might quote Mann to emphasize how society views brilliance through the lens of hardship.
More from Thomas Mann
All quotes βStupid 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.
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.
Similar quotes
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Either the translator leaves the author in peace, as much as is possible, and moves the reader towards him: or he leaves the reader in peace, as much as possible, and moves the author towards him.
Optimism is not only a false but also a pernicious doctrine, for it presents life as a desirable state and man's happiness as its aim and object. Starting from this, everyone then believes he has the most legitimate claim to happiness and enjoyment. If, as usually happens, these do not fall to his lot, he believes that he suffers an injustice, in fact that he misses the whole point of his existence.
God's goodness is the root of all goodness; and our goodness, if we have any, springs out of His goodness.
In many ways, astrology, numerology and palmistry are corruptions of the occult because they have attempted to make a practice out of something that is essentially imaginative.