When they are preparing for war, those who rule by force speak most copiously about peace until they have completed the mobilization process.
Stefan ZweigRead
All my life I have been passionately interested in monomaniacs of any kind, people carried away by a single idea. The more one limits oneself, the closer one is to the infinite; these people, as unworldly as they seem, burrow like termites into their own particular material to construct, in miniature, a strange and utterly individual image of the world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Focusing deeply on one idea can lead to profound insights and a unique understanding of the world.
In this quote, Stefan Zweig reflects on the power of monomania, or intense focus on a single idea. He suggests that such individuals, despite appearing eccentric or disconnected from reality, delve deeply into their passions, creating unique perspectives that offer valuable interpretations of existence. This intense concentration allows them to construct a deeply personal and imaginative view of the world that is often richer than the typical, more generalized perspectives held by others.
Themes
MonomaniaFocusIndividualityPerspectivePassion
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech about finding one's passion, one could use this quote to illustrate the value of deep focus.
More from Stefan Zweig
All quotes →Only ambition is fired by the coincidences of success and easy accomplishment but nothing is quite as splendidly uplifting to the heart as the defeat of a human being who battles against the invincible superiority of fate. This is always the most grandiose of all tragedies, one sometimes created by a dramatist but created thousands of times by life.
Stefan ZweigRead
Now I am discovering the world once more. England has widened my horizon.
Stefan ZweigRead
In history, the moments during which reason and reconciliation prevail are short and fleeting.
Stefan ZweigRead
Only the person who has experienced light and darkness, war and peace, rise and fall, only that person has truly experienced life.
Stefan ZweigRead
Memory is so corrupt that you remember only what you want to; if you want to forget about something, slowly but surely you do.
Stefan ZweigRead
Similar quotes
Oh for a single hour of that Dundee Who on that day the word of onset gave!
William WordsworthRead
When a human being takes his life in depression, this is a natural death of spiritual causes. The modern barbarity of 'saving' the suicidal is based on a hair-raising misapprehension of the nature of existence.
Peter Wessel ZapffeRead
Most people who offer their help do it to make themselves feel better, not us. To be honest, I don't blame them. It's superstition: If you give assistance to the family in need... if you throw salt over your shoulder... if you don't step on the cracks, then maybe you'll be immune. Maybe you'll be able to convince yourself that this could never happen to you.
Jodi PicoultRead
And so you're afraid of the emptiness of your friend's life. But there's no emptiness in the life of a man of knowledge, I tell you. Everything is filled to the brim and everything is equal.
Carlos CastanedaRead
Our little Spaceship Earth is only eight thousand miles in diameter, which is almost a negligible dimension in the great vastness of space.
R. Buckminster FullerRead
The crown o' the earth doth melt. My lord! O, wither'd is the garland of the war, The soldier's pole is fall'n: young boys and girls Are level now with men; the odds is gone, And there is nothing left remarkable Beneath the visiting moon.
William ShakespeareRead