(?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)
Thomas Mann

“Protestantism harbors within it certain elements – just as the Great Reformer himself harbored such elements within his personality. I am thinking here of a sentimentality, a trancelike self-hypnosis that is not European, that is foreign and hostile to our active hemisphere’s law of life. Just look at him, this Luther. Look at the portraits, both as a young man and later. What a skull, what cheekbones, what a strange set to the eyes. My friend, that is Asia. I would be surprised, would be astonished, if Wendish-Slavic-Sarmatian blood was not at work there, and if it was not this massive phenomenon of a man – and who would deny him that – who proved to be a fatal weight placed on one of the two precariously balanced scales of your nation, on the Eastern scale, which caused – and still causes – the Western scale to fly heavenward.”

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Read more quotes from Thomas Mann


Share this quote:
Share on Twitter

Friends Who Liked This Quote

To see what your friends thought of this quote, please sign up!


This Quote Is From

The Magic Mountain The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
57,302 ratings, average rating, 4,669 reviews
Open Preview

Browse By Tag