Fear thrives strongest; there is no telling how little we would be without having suffered fear. An intrinsic characteristic of humanity is the tendency to give in to fear. No fear is lost, but its hiding places are a riddle. Perhaps, of all things, fear is the one that changes least.

— Elias Canetti

Elias Canetti Quotes

The fluid boundary between individuals and types is a true concern of the real writer.

— Elias Canetti

There is, in Kafka, a sort of sleep-worship; he regards sleep as a panacea.

— Elias Canetti

The freedom to fail is preserved, as a sort of supreme law, which guarantees escape at every fresh juncture. One is inclined to call this the freedom of the weak person who seeks salvation in defeat. His true uniqueness, his special relation to power, is expressed in the prohibition of victory. All calculations originate and end in impotence.

— Elias Canetti

One needs time to free oneself of wrong convictions. If it happens too suddenly, they go on festering.

— Elias Canetti

At home in the nursery, I usually played alone. Actually, I seldom played, I spoke to the wallpaper. The many dark circles in the pattern of the wallpaper seemed like people to me. I made up stories in which they appeared, either I told them the stories or they played with me, I never got tired of the wallpaper people and I could talk to them for hours.

— Elias Canetti

She was crude, but loyal. He began to understand her even better than before. A pity she was so old; it was too late to try to make a human being of her.

— Elias Canetti

In the hierarchy of man’s activities, eating was the lowest. Eating had become the object of a cult, but in fact it was but the preliminary to other, utterly contemptible motions. It occurred to him that he wanted to perform one of these too.

— Elias Canetti

Every command leaves behind a painful sting in the person who is forced to carry it out.

— Elias Canetti

Savor powerlessness, after power, in every phase that matches it precisely; replace every old triumph with the new defeat; strengthen yourself on your weakness; win yourself back when so very lost.

— Elias Canetti

Disgust at collective killing is of very recent date and should not be over-estimated. Today everyone takes part in public executions through the newspapers. Like everything else, however, it is more comfortable than it was. We sit peacefully at home and, out of a hundred details, can choose those to linger over which offer a special thrill. We only applaud when everything is over and there is no feeling of guilty connivance to spoil our pleasure.

— Elias Canetti

The crowd is the same everywhere, in all periods and cultures; it remains essentially the same among men of the most diverse origin, education and language. Once in being, it spreads with the utmost violence. Few can resist its contagion; it always wants to go on growing and there are no inherent limits to its growth. It can arise wherever people are together, and its spontaneity and suddenness are uncanny.

— Elias Canetti

The Englishman likes to imagine himself at sea, the German in a forest. It is impossible to express the difference of their national feeling more concisely.

— Elias Canetti

The fingers of the attacker feel what will soon belong to his whole body.

— Elias Canetti

People sit together, bare their teeth and eat and, even in this critical moment, feel no desire to eat each other. They respect themselves for this, and respect their companions for an abstemiousness equal to their own.

— Elias Canetti

The family becomes rigid and hard when it excludes others from its meals; those that must be fed provide a natural pretext for the exclusion of others. The hollowness of this pretext is revealed by families which have no children and yet make not the slightest move to share their meal with others. The ‘family’ of two is man’s most contemptible creation.

— Elias Canetti

Those most beset by commands are children. It is a miracle that they ever survive the pressure and do not collapse under the burden of the commands laid on them by their parents and teachers. That they in turn, and in equally cruel form, should give identical commands to their children is as natural as mastication or speech.

— Elias Canetti

The hallucinations of alcoholics provide us with an opportunity to study crowds as they appear in the minds of individuals.

— Elias Canetti

I’ve nothing, am nothing, shall be nothing, and yet I take nothing.

— Elias Canetti

What is it that happens in an inflation? The unit of money suddenly loses its identity. The crowd it is part of starts growing and, the larger it becomes, the smaller becomes the worth of each unit. The millions one always wanted are suddenly there in one’s hand, but they are no longer millions in fact, but only in name.

— Elias Canetti

He panted for silence as others do for air.

— Elias Canetti
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