Famous quotes containing the word musil:
“To the degree that respect for professors ... has risen in our society, respect for writers has fallen. Today the professorial intellect has achieved its highest public standing since the world began, while writers have come to be called “men of letters,” by which is meant people who are prevented by some obscure infirmity from becoming competent journalists.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“... we engage in politics because we don’t know anything. This is clearly revealed in the way we go about it. Our parties exist from a fear of theory. The voter fears that one idea can always be contradicted by another. Therefore the parties reciprocally defend themselves against the few old ideas they have inherited. They don’t live from what they promise, but from frustrating the promises of others. This is their silent community of interests.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)
“Wordsworth’s particular grace, his charisma, as theologians say, has been granted in equal measure to so very few men since time was—to Plato and who else?
The crucial thing is never what we do, but always what we do right after that. What matters is always the next step!”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)