and the sporty attire only partly conceals the illnesses that have already taken possession of him. (Location 195)
Photography is a vulgar addiction that is gradually taking hold of the whole of humanity, which is not only enamored of such distortion and perversion but completely sold on them, and will in due course, given the proliferation of photography, take the distorted and perverted world of the photograph to be the only real one. (Location 234)
It’s only when we have a proper concept of art that we have a proper concept of nature, he said. It’s only when we can apply the concept of art correctly and enjoy art that we can make proper use of nature and enjoy it too. (Location 279)
Note: attitude to nature
They have chronic illnesses that prolong their lives instead of shortening them, he said. (Location 462)
The Latin peoples are not so narrow-minded and never have been. Natural life still flourishes there, but here it has almost died out. In Germany and Austria natural life has not been possible for centuries, having been extinguished by the craving for diplomas and titles. (Location 710)
Note: nature
Very soon my brother’s favorite words were grain, pigs, pines, and firs, while mine were Paris, London, Caucasus, Tolstoy, and Ibsen, and his repeated attempts to fire me with enthusiasm for his favorite words, (Location 718)
both of them soon realized that it was sufficient to play at work without actually doing any. Basically they did nothing all their lives but polish their act, and in this field—not to say this art—they became consummate performers. Most people feign work, especially in Central Europe. They constantly play at working and go on polishing their act right into old age, but the act has as little to do with real work as a play has to do with real life. Yet because human beings would rather see life as a play than as real life—which they regard as far too tedious and laborious, indeed as a gross indignity—they prefer playacting to life and, therefore, to work. Unlike the others, I never attached much importance to my father’s capacity for work, knowing that it was for the most part just playacting. So was my brother’s, who imitated and improved on my father’s act in order to show it off to an admiring public. But it is not just in the higher classes, so called, that work is simulated rather than performed; even among supposedly simple people the simulation of work is widespread. Wherever we look, we see work being simulated and activity feigned by people who are in fact idling, doing nothing at all, and creating nothing but mischief instead of making themselves useful. Most workers today believe that all they have to do is put on their blue overalls and do nothing—certainly nothing useful. Having donned their costume, the ubiquitous blue overalls, they rush around all day in this costume and often even break out in a sweat, though it is a spurious sweat, generated not by work but by the simulation of work. Even ordinary people have realized that such simulated work is more profitable than real work, though certainly not healthier—far from it. Today they merely simulate work instead of actually working, and the result is that suddenly every state is on the verge of ruin, as we can see. (Location 808)
They could just as well rail at me and pillory me for the same malevolence that I’ve discerned in them all these years. We very soon get used to hating and condemning people without ever asking ourselves whether this hatred and condemnation are in any way justified. (Location 913)
Note: turn up - reader gameplaying? and why so garrulous?
The whole of Austria has been turned into an unscrupulous commercial concern in which everything is bargained for and everyone is defrauded. You think you’re visiting a beautiful country, but in reality you’re visiting a monstrous business enterprise. (Location 1022)
Note: so the q is wot is the manner of this person - interrogted thru our times and ourselves
In Central Europe there are no longer any natural mothers, only artificial mothers, puppet mothers who bring artificial children into the world. (Location 1092)
Note: hoffman etc
Nature no longer exists. We always start from the contemplation of nature, when for ages we should have been starting from the contemplation of artifice. (Location 1101)
