170 Quotes by Robert Musil

Can you imagine Jesus as boss of a coal mine?

The truth is not a crystal that can be slipped into one’s pocket, but an endless current into which one falls headlong.

Every day there comes a moment when a person lays his hands in his lap and all his busyness collapses like ashes. The work accomplished is, from the soul’s point of view, entirely imaginary.

Fai bene quanto puoi e male quanto devi, sempre consapevole del margine d’errore del tuo fare.

On her way back she thought she noticed that everything in the world was secretly contrived for beatings. It was just a thought that went through her mind. Parents their child. The state its convicts. The military its soldiers. The rich the poor. The coachman his horse. People went walking with big dogs on leashes. Everyone would rather intimidate another person than come to an understanding with him.

Every word wants to be taken literally, else it decays into a lie. But one mustn’t take any word literally, else the world becomes a madhouse.

Within reality there is a senseless craving for unreality.

At last Hyacinth asked rather mournfully: “Why do you keep on pushing me away?” The note of unhappiness in that voice quite shocked him. How little one knows what one knows, or wants what one wants.

Even in his greatest dedication to science he had never managed to forget that people’s goodness and beauty come from what they believe, not from what they know.