Karl Kraus Quotes
"Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Irony, Moon)
"No ideas and the ability to express them - that's a journalist."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Ideas, Ability)
"Scandal begins when the police put a stop to it."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Police, Scandal)
"Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Illness, Psychoanalysis, Therapy)
"My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Consciousness, Unconscious)
"Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Morality, Virtue, Boredom, Disease)
"Matrimony is the union of meanness and martyrdom."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Matrimony)
"When a man is treated like a beast, he says, 'After all, I'm human.' When he behaves like a beast, he says 'After all, I'm only human.'"
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Man)
"Justice is a whore that won't let herself be stiffed, and collects the wages of shame even from the poor."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Justice, Poor, Shame, Wages)
"The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Attention, Culture, Mission, Press)
"Journalists write because they have nothing to say, and have something to say because they write."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Nothing)
"Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he has, the worse he writes."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Time, Ideas, Ability, Skill, Writer)
"Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Mother, Thought, Language)
"Sexuality poorly repressed unsettles some families; well repressed, it unsettles the whole world."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Sexuality, World)
"Solitude would be ideal if you could pick the people to avoid."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: People, Solitude)
"Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Time, Aphorisms)
"Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Nature, Crime, Human nature, Justice, Will)
"The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Word)
"The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Order, Sound, World)
"The trouble with Germans is not that they fire shells, but that they engrave them with quotations from Kant."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Fire, Quotations, Trouble)
"There are people who can never forgive a beggar for their not having given him anything."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: People)
"There is no more unfortunate creature under the sun than a fetishist who yearns for a woman's shoe and has to settle for the whole woman."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Sun, Woman)
"To me all men are equal: there are jackasses everywhere, and I have the same contempt for them all."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Men, Contempt)
"Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Virginity, Want)
"Jealousy is a dog's bark which attracts thieves."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Jealousy)
"Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Art, Science, Light)
"Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Force, Stupidity)
"A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Ugly, Woman)
"It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Ability, Idealism, Loss, Old, Style)
"Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don't come into the world."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Education, Sex, Children, Girls, World)
"A fine world in which man reproaches woman with fulfilling his heart's desire!"
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Heart, Man, Woman, World)
"A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Writer)
"An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Idea, Feeling)
"Children play soldier. That makes sense. But why do soldiers play children?"
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Children, Play, Sense, Soldiers)
"Christian morality prefers remorse to precede lust, and then lust not to follow."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Morality, Christian, Lust, Remorse)
"Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Corruption, Country, Morals, Prostitution)
"Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence. Civilization is the subordination of the latter to the former."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Civilization, Purpose, Agreement, Culture, Existence)
"Curses on the law! Most of my fellow citizens are the sorry consequences of uncommitted abortions."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Consequences)
"Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Time, Work, People, Democracy, Workers)
"Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Opportunity, Democracy)
"Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Life)
"It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean."
- Karl Kraus
"A child learns to discard his ideals, whereas a grown-up never wears out his short pants."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Ideals)
"Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Education, Idiots)
"I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Open)
"I don't like to meddle in my private affairs."
- Karl Kraus
"I and my public understand each other very well: it does not hear what I say, and I don't say what it wants to hear."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Public)
"I and life: The case was settled chivalrously. The opponents parted without having made up."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Opponents)
"I am already so popular that anyone who vilifies me becomes more popular than I am."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Popular)
"How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: War, Lie, Lies, World)
"He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Opportunity, Praise, Will)
"Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Passion)
"Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Wisdom, Inheritance, Miser)
"Education is what most receive, many pass on, and few possess."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Education)
"If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies."
- Karl Kraus
(Related: Imagination, Life, Truth, Lies)