“Writing well was almost the same as thinking well, and thinking well was the next thing to acting well.”

— Thomas Mann , book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 4
Context: Writing well was almost the same as thinking well, and thinking well was the next thing to acting well. All moral discipline, all moral perfection derived from the soul of literature, from the soul of human dignity, which was the moving spirit of both humanity and politics. Yes, they were all one, one and the same force, one and the same idea, and all of them could be comprehended in one single word... The word was — civilization!

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Thomas Mann 159

German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate 1875–1955

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