"The blind man is not blind by birth, but he became blind with little effort. He has a camera, he takes it everywhere, and he just loves keeping his eyes closed. He walks about as though asleep, he has seen absolutely nothing as yet, and already he is shooting it, for when all things lie next to one another, equally small, equally large, always rectangular, orderly, cut off, named, numbered, proven and demonstrated, then you can see them much better in any event. The blind man saves himself the trouble of viewing anything beforehand. He gathers the things he would have seen and piles them up and enjoys them as though they were stamps. He travels all over the world for the sake of his camera, nothing is far enough, shiny enough, strange enough—he gets it for the camera. He says: I was there, and he points to it, and if he could not point at it he would not know where he had been, the world is confusing, exotic, rich, who can retain it all."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Memoirists from BulgariaNovelists from BulgariaPlaywrights from BulgariaNon-fiction authors from BulgariaPsychologists from Bulgaria
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
“The Blind Man” J. Neugroshel, trans. (1979), p. 13
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Elias_Canetti
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Elias Canetti
1905 – 1994
bulgarischer deutschsprachiger Schriftsteller
44 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Elias Canetti →
Related Quotes
"I hate judgments that only crush and don’t transform."
"One who, alone, would be unconquerable. But he weakens himself with allegiances."
"I love writers who limit themselves, who write beneath their intelligence."
"Is there still a possibility of public truth? The prime condition for that would be that you pose your own questions,…"
"I was never drawn to experiment with language; I take note of such experiments, but avoid them in my own writing. The…"
"The story of your youth must not turn into a catalog of what became important in your later life. It must also contai…"
"Ehrgeiz ist der Tod des Denkens."
"One who obeys himself suffocates as surely as one who obeys others."
"Whenever the truth threatens, he hides behind a thought."
"I can’t be twenty-two again. I can’t subject myself to the same compulsion that, at the time, appeared to me as freed…"