Quotation by Robert Musil

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[On Criticism] Robert Musil: Precision and Soul. Essays and Addresses, p. 43, ed. and trans. by Burton Pike and David S. Luft, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1990)diary entry, 1918-1921 Tagebucher, ed. Adolf Frise, trans. by Donald C. Rieche, Rowohlt (1976)Diary entry, date uncertain: 1899?-1905/06 Tagebucher, 2 vols., ed. Adolf Frise, trans. by Donald C. Rieche, Rowohlt (1976)Die Wallfahrt nach Innen [The Pilgrimage into the Interior] p. 1447, ed. Adolf Frise, trans. by Donald C. Riechel, Rowohlt (1978)Helpless Europe. A Digressive Journey (1922) Robert Musil, Precision and Soul. Essays and Addresses, p. 127, ed. and trans. by Burton Pike and David S. Luft, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1990)

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life (23) nature (22) science (18) writers and writing (15) beauty (14) literature (14) poetry (13) poets (13) creativity (10) progress (8)

What is done for science must also be done for art: accepting undesirable side effects for the sake of the main goal, and moreover diminishing their importance by making this main goal more magnificent. For one should reform forward, not backward: social illnesses, revolutions, are evolutions inhibited by a conserving stupidity.

Robert Musil

Robert Musil (1880–1942), Austrian author. The Obscene and Pathological in Art (1911), a polemic against censorship of the arts, and Musil's first published essay (in the journal Pan). Robert Musil, Precision and Soul. Essays and Addresses, p.9, ed. and trans. by Burton Pike and David S. Luft, Chicago: University of Chicago Press (1990).

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