Quotes from Buddenbrooks
9 notable lines from Thomas Mann · 1901
My son, attend with zeal to thy business by day; but do none that hinders thee from thy sleep by night.
Quotations follow the John E. Woods translation (Vintage International, 1994) — our recommended edition.
And—and—what comes next?
Opening line — the elder Frau Buddenbrook prompting little Tony's catechism, Part 1 · trans. Lowe-Porter Again he had learned that beauty can pierce one like a pain, and that it can sink profoundly into shame and a longing despair that utterly consume the courage and energy necessary to the life of every day.
On young Hanno, Part 11 · trans. Lowe-Porter "I shall live!" said Thomas Buddenbrook, almost aloud, and felt his breast shaken with inward sobs.
Thomas after reading Schopenhauer, Part 10 · trans. Lowe-Porter What is success? It is an inner, an indescribable force, resourcefulness, power of vision; a consciousness that I am, by my mere existence, exerting pressure on the movement of life about me.
Thomas Buddenbrook, Part 7 · trans. Lowe-Porter We are most likely to get angry and excited in our opposition to some idea when we ourselves are not quite certain of our own position, and are inwardly tempted to take the other side.
Part 8 · trans. Lowe-Porter Did you know one can be a great man, even in a small place; a Cæsar even in a little commercial town on the Baltic?
Thomas Buddenbrook at his uncle's deathbed, Part 5 · trans. Lowe-Porter We are the bourgeoisie—the third estate, as they call us now—and what we want is a nobility of merit, nothing more.
Thomas Buddenbrook · trans. Lowe-Porter What was Death? The answer came, not in poor, large-sounding words: he felt it within him, he possessed it.
Thomas Buddenbrook's meditation on death, Part 10 · trans. Lowe-Porter