A statement that seems to contradict itself or common sense, but which, when thought through, reveals a truth.
In The Magic Mountain
the strange impression, somewhere between dreamy and distressing, of something that filed past without moving, that changed and yet remained, something that was as much reiteration as dizzying monotony
The passage says that something "filed past without moving" and "changed and yet remained." To say that there is movement without displacement seems impossible, but it describes the boy's impression of the generations that pass and always repeat the same gesture.
Chapter II: The Baptismal Basin and the Two Figures of the Grandfather, the narrator
So the boy approved in his heart that the grandfather should appear in full authenticity and perfection on the day when the hour came to bid him farewell forever [...] the grandfather, solemnly released from that passing adaptation, had definitively assumed his genuine and deserved appearance
Chapter II: The Baptismal Basin and the Two Figures of the Grandfather, the narrator
Sometimes it occurs to me that this business of illness and death is not serious at bottom; it is rather a kind of relaxation.
Chapter III: The First Full Day and the Arrival of Settembrini, Joachim Ziemssen
Incurable, ladies! Look at the man before you; he is an incurable case [...] I have nothing more to do; I no longer enter into the reckoning; I can laugh at everything...
Chapter III: The First Full Day and the Arrival of Settembrini, Mr. Albin
A rich and interesting content is [...] capable of shortening the hour and even the day [...] so that years rich in events pass far more slowly than those others, poor, empty, light, swept away by the wind and flown off. What is called boredom is, therefore, in reality, rather a morbid brevity of time, caused by monotony
Chapter IV: The Sense of Time, Hippe and the Thermometer, the narrator
It is the same day repeating over and over; yet, precisely because it is always the same day, the term "repetition" seems at bottom rather inappropriate; it would be better to speak of monotony, of a now that has stopped, or of eternity. They bring you soup at lunchtime, just as they brought it yesterday and will bring it tomorrow. [...] the times run together, mingle in your mind, and what reveals itself to you as the true form of existence is a present without extension, in which they bring you soup eternally.
Chapter V: Humaniora, the Analysis and Walpurgis Night, the narrator
I say "yes" to the body, I honor it and feel love for it [...] I am not unaware that, within the antithesis of body and spirit, the former represents the evil and diabolical principle; for the body is nature, and nature [...] is evil: mystical and evil!
Chapter V: Humaniora, the Analysis and Walpurgis Night, Lodovico Settembrini
We already know that power is evil. But for the kingdom to come, the dualism between good and evil, this side and the beyond, spirit and arbitrariness must be momentarily suspended, and united in one principle that combines asceticism and dominion. This is what I call the necessity of terror
Chapter VI: Naphta, the Snow and the Death of Joachim, Leo Naphta
the more sickly, the more human, and the genius of sickness is more human than the genius of health
Chapter VI: Naphta, the Snow and the Death of Joachim, Leo Naphta
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