“Irony, forsooth! Guard yourself, Engineer, from the sort of irony that thrives up here”

— Thomas Mann , book The Magic Mountain

Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 5
Context: Irony, forsooth! Guard yourself, Engineer, from the sort of irony that thrives up here; guard yourself altogether from taking on their mental attitude! Where irony is not a direct and classic device of oratory, not for a moment equivocal to a healthy mind, it makes for depravity, it becomes a drawback to civilization, an unclean traffic with the forces of reaction, vice and materialism.

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Thomas Mann 159

German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate 1875–1955

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