All 24 Uses

ascetic
in
The Magic Mountain
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If only they could have also heard Carducci's interpretation of Dante—celebrating him as a citizen of a great city, who had defended the revolutionary and reforming spirit of human enterprise against asceticism and all denial of the world.†
Chpt 4.9 *

asceticism = the practice of extreme self-denial (often to encourage spiritual growth)
You will never find me guilty of ascetic tendencies.†
Chpt 5.5

ascetic = someone who practices self-denial; or something that is severely plain
It was a purely ascetic exercise, a part of the discipline of penitence, a means of salvation.†
Chpt 6.2
There is something devilishly earnest about it all, something 'ascetic,' if you will—that was, I believe, the term you were kind enough to use just now—and one must always reckon that one will have to deal with death, just as, ultimately, the clergy must deal with it as well—with what else, really?†
Chpt 6.2
And it really doesn't matter much whether one is wearing a stiff uniform collar or a starched ruff, the end result is the same, an 'ascetic' result, as you put it so splendidly just now.†
Chpt 6.2
It is not until the Gothic that tastes turn to true pessimistic asceticism.†
Chpt 6.3

asceticism = the practice of extreme self-denial (often to encourage spiritual growth)
Did I understand you to say that the work is ascetic and witty?†
Chpt 6.3

ascetic = someone who practices self-denial; or something that is severely plain
But if the kingdom is to come, the dualism between good and evil, between this world and the next, between power and the Spirit, must be temporarily abrogated and transformed in a principle that unites asceticism and dominion.†
Chpt 6.3

asceticism = the practice of extreme self-denial (often to encourage spiritual growth)
For each was as much a military calling as the other, in every sense: in asceticism and hierarchy, in obedience and Spanish sense of honor.†
Chpt 6.6
On that they were in fierce agreement—as worlds, as orders, as professions; and a child of peace found it worth his while to listen to Naphta talk about the martial monks of the Middle Ages, who, although ascetics to the point of exhaustion, were likewise filled with a spiritual lust for power and did not refrain from bloodshed in order to bring about the City of God and its transcendent world dominion; or about belligerent Knights Templar, who considered death in battle against unbelievers more meritorious than death in one's bed and for whom slaying and being slain for the sake of Christ was no crime, but the highest glory.†
Chpt 6.6
And, of course, what prompted Naphta to call patriotism a plague was asceticism—what all did he not subsume under that concept, what all, in his opinion, did not oppose asceticism and the kingdom of God!†
Chpt 6.6

asceticism = the practice of extreme self-denial (often to encourage spiritual growth)
And, of course, what prompted Naphta to call patriotism a plague was asceticism—what all did he not subsume under that concept, what all, in his opinion, did not oppose asceticism and the kingdom of God!†
Chpt 6.6
Asceticism was even his basis for reproaching the humanist whenever he trumpeted peace and happiness; Naphta would belligerently accuse him to his face of love of the flesh (amor carnalis) and love of physical comfort {commodorum corporis), call it utter bourgeois irreligion to ascribe the least value to life and health.†
Chpt 6.6
The madness of ascetics.†
Chpt 6.6
Herr Settembrini was certainly a zealous pedagogue, zealous to the point of being a tiresome bother; but his principles could not approach Naphta's when it came to ascetic, self-mortifying objectivity.†
Chpt 6.6

ascetic = someone who practices self-denial; or something that is severely plain
What constituted man's true state and condition: obliteration in all-devouring, all-leveling community, which was a simultaneously voluptuous and ascetic act; or "critical subjectivity," where bombast and strict bourgeois virtue were at loggerheads?†
Chpt 6.6
Whereupon Naphta felt obliged to offer cold, caustic proof—and his proof was almost blindingly incontrovertible—that the Church was the embodiment of the religious, ascetic ideal, and at her core not even remotely an advocate or supporter of forces whose concern was to maintain themselves: worldly education and civil authority, for instance; rather, from time immemorial the Church had inscribed radical overthrow upon her banner—destruction, root and branch.†
Chpt 7.4
For the ascetic Spirit—if he might be permitted a tautology—the Spirit that denied and destroyed the world, was nobility itself, the aristocratic principle in its purest form; it could never be popular, and indeed the Church had been essentially unpopular throughout the ages.†
Chpt 7.4
If Herr Settembrini would bother to do a little research on the literature of the Middle Ages he would discover that fact: the people—taken in the widest sense—had always had a crude distaste for the Church and her ways, as evidenced, for example, in their regard for certain legendary monks, creations of popular fantasy, who opposed the ascetic ideal with wine, women, and song in a downright Luther-like fashion.†
Chpt 7.4
Naphta was told to be silent on that account—first, because it was an outrage to humane feelings, and second, because he, Settembrini, had heard enough evasions and could see through the tricks of his opponent's apologetics to the thoroughly infamous and devilish cult of nihilism, which desired to be called Spirit and managed to perceive something legitimizing and sanctifying in the acknowledged unpopularity of the ascetic principle.†
Chpt 7.4
Could it be that Herr Settembrini had never been touched by that breath of humane irony with which the Church continually made concessions to the world, to the flesh, cleverly acquiescing in order to disguise the ultimate consequences of the ascetic principle and letting the influence of the Spirit establish order by not opposing nature all too sternly?†
Chpt 7.4
And so he had never heard of the refined priestly concept of indulgence, under which even a sacrament was included—marriage, to be precise, which unlike the other sacraments was not a positive good, but a defense against sin, conferred solely to limit sensual desire and to instill moderation, so that the ascetic principle, the ideal of chastity, might be affirmed without defying the flesh with unpolitic severity?†
Chpt 7.4
And he championed the innocence of lust—and Hans Castorp was reminded of that humanist's spare garret with its lectern and rush-bottom chairs and water carafe; whereas Naphta, after first claiming that lust could never be without guilt and that nature should, if you please, have a bad conscience in the presence of the Spirit, went on to refute the nihilism of the ascetic principle by defining the Church's policy of spiritual indulgence as "love"—and Hans Castorp found the word "love" sounded very odd coming from caustic, gaunt little Naphta.†
Chpt 7.4
Asceticism—indulgence—sensual lust—let me say that—by all means!†
Chpt 7.4

asceticism = the practice of extreme self-denial (often to encourage spiritual growth)

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Definitions:

(1) (ascetic)
someone who practices self-denial (often to encourage spiritual growth); or relating to such self-denial

or:

severely plain (without decoration)
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)

ascetic in The Magic Mountain (Auto-generated)

ascetic
in
The Magic Mountain
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