Elias Canetti Quotes

Best Quotes by Elias Canetti (Top 10)

All the things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.
Elias Canetti
Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune?
Elias Canetti
Understanding, as we understand it, is misunderstanding.
Elias Canetti
His head is made of stars, but not yet arranged into constellations.
Elias Canetti
I cannot become modest; too many things burn in me; the old solutions are falling apart; nothing has been done yet with the new ones. So I begin, everywhere at once, as if I had a century ahead of me.
Elias Canetti
When you write down your life, every page should contain something no one has ever heard about
Elias Canetti
The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation.
Elias Canetti
There is no doubt: the study of man is just beginning, at the same time that his end is in sight.
Elias Canetti
A 'modern' man has nothing to add to modernism, if only because he has nothing to oppose it with. The well-adapted drop off the dead limb of time like lice.
Elias Canetti
It doesn't matter how new an idea is: what matters is how new it becomes.
Elias Canetti

The profoundest thoughts of the philosophers have something trickle about them. A lot disappears in order for something to suddenly appear in the palm of the hand.
Elias Canetti
Most religions do not make men better, only warier.
Elias Canetti
The planet's survival has become so uncertain that any effort, any thought that presupposes an assured future amounts to a mad gamble.
Elias Canetti
The self- explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else. He learns to see himself, but suddenly, provided he was honest, all the rest appears, and it is as rich as he was, and, as a final crowning, richer.
Elias Canetti
The paranoiac is the exact image of the ruler. The only difference is their position in the world. One might even think the paranoiac the more impressive of the two because he is sufficient unto himself and cannot be shaken by failure.
Elias Canetti
Adults find pleasure in deceiving a child. They consider it necessary, but they also enjoy it. The children very quickly figure it out and then practice deception themselves.
Elias Canetti