Karl Kraus Quotes

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.

The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.

A weak man has doubts before a decision; a strong man has them afterwards.

The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he.

To be sure, the dog is loyal. But why, on that account, should we take him as an example? He is loyal to man, not to other dogs.

A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.

Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.

Life is an effort that deserves a better cause.

You don't even live once.

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.

War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.

Satire that the censor understands is rightly censored.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

There is no more unhappy being under the sun than a fetishist who pines for a boot and has to content himself with an entire woman.

In Berlin, things are serious but not hopeless. In Vienna, they are hopeless but not serious.

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

Intercourse with a woman is sometimes a satisfactory substitute for masturbation. But it takes a lot of imagination to make it work.

Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy.

Jealousy is a dog's bark which attracts thieves.

I don't like to meddle in my private affairs.

The making of a journalist: no ideas and the ability to express them.

Heinrich Heine so loosened the corsets of the German language that today every little salesman can fondle her breasts.

A weak man has doubts before a decision, a stong man has them afterwards.

To be perfect, one lacks only a defect.

Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence.

The real end of the world is the destruction of the spirit; the other kind depends on the insignificant attempt to see whether after such a destruction the world can go on.

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people meaner.

Ma dove troverò mai il tempo per non leggere tante cose?

I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.

How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.

I have to do this, as long as it is at all possible; for if those who are obliged to look after commas had always made sure they were in the right place, then Shanghai would not be burning.

Quien calla una palabra es su dueño; quien la pronuncia es su esclavo.

There are women who are not beautiful but only look that way.

When the sun of culture is low, even dwarves will cast long shadows

Chastity always takes its toll. In some it produces pimples; in others, sex laws.

It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.

Wenn die Sonne der Kultur tief steht, werfen selbst Zwerge lange Schatten.

Music laps at the shores of the intellect; only those with no firm ground under their feet can live for music. — Karl Kraus

Oswald Spengler's Decline of the West, Ernst Bloch's Spirit of Utopia, Hermann Hesse's Glimpse Into Chaos, Edmund Husserl's The Crisis in European Science, Karl Kraus's The Last Days of Mankind, Arthur Koestler's The Ghost in the Machine, Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities, José Ortega y Gasset's The Revolt of the Masses, Martin Heidegger's Being and Time, René Guenon's The Reign of Quantity, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, Colin Wilson's The Outsider—the list could go on.

Wo nehm ich nur all die Zeit her, so viel nicht zu lesen?

Politics is what a man does in order to conceal what he is and what he himself does not know.

Hate must make a person productive; otherwise one might as well love.

One must read all writers twice - the good as well as the bad. The one kind will be recognized; the other, unmasked.

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.

Everything that’s created remains as it was before it was created. The artist fetches it down from the heavens as a finished thing. Eternity has no beginning. Poetry or a Joke: the act of creation lies between what’s self-evident and what is permanent

what I defend above all is the possibility and the necessity of the critical intellectual, who is firstly critical of the intellectual doxa secreted by the doxosophers. there is no genuine democracy without genuine opposing critical powers. the intellectual is one of those, of the first magnitude. that is why I think that the work of demolishing the critical intellectual, living or dead - marx, nietzsche, sartre, foucault, and some others who are grouped together under the label pansee 68- is as dangerous as the demolition of the public interest and that it is part of the same process of restoration. of course I would prefer it if intellectuals had all, and always, lived up to the immense historical responsibility they bear and if they had always invested in their actions not only their moral authority but also their intellectual competence- like, to cite just one example, pierre vidal-naquet, who has engaged all his mastery of historical method in a critique of the abuses of history. having said that, in the words of karl kraus, 'between two evils, I refuse to choose the lesser.' whole I have little indulgence for 'irresponsible' intellectuals, I have even less respect for the 'intellectuals' of the political-administrative establishment, polymorphous polygraphs who polish their annual essays between two meetings of boards of directors, three publishers' parties and miscellaneous television appearances.

A “seducer” who boasts of initiating women into the mystery of love is like a stranger who arrives at a railroad station and offers to show the sights to a tourist guide.

Science is spectrum analysis. Art is Photosynthesis.

Soldiers who don't know what they're fighting for know, nevertheless, what they're not fighting for.

Es gibt Menschen, die es zeitlebens einem Bettler nachtragen, daß sie ihm nichts gegeben haben.

Progress makes purses out of human skin.

Karl Kraus ist abgestiegen zur Hölle, zu richten die Lebendigen und die Toten.

The contempt for what the Viennese satirist Karl Kraus called Bürokretinismus served further to undermine public confidence in their government.

Graças a Karl Kraus comecei a compreender que cada indivíduo tem uma configuração lingüística própria, que o distingue de todos os demais. Compreendi que embora os homens falem uns com os outros, não se entendem; que suas palavras são golpes que ricocheteiam nas palavras dos outros; que não existe ilusão maior do que a opinião de que a língua é um meio de comunicação entre seres humanos. Fala-se com a outra pessoa, mas de uma maneira que ela não entende. Continua-se a falar, e ela entende ainda menos. Um grita, o outro grita também: a exclamação, que tem uma vida miserável na gramática, apodera-se da língua. Como bolas, as exclamações saltam para lá e para cá, chocam-se e caem pelo chão. Raramente algo que se diz consegue infiltrar-se nos outros; e, quando isso afinal acontece, é entendido às avessas.

Die Moralheuchler sind nicht darum hassenswert, weil sie anders tun, als sie bekennen, sondern weil sie anders bekennen, als sie tun. Wer die Moralheuchelei verdammt, muß peinlich darauf bedacht sein, daß man ihn nicht für einen Freund der Moral halte, die jene doch wenigstens insgeheim verraten. Nicht der Verrat an der Moral ist sträflich, sondern die Moral. Sie ist Heuchelei an und für sich. Nicht daß jene Wein trinken, sollte enthüllt werden, sondern daß sie Wasser predigen.

Uma mulher é, às vezes, uma alternativa satisfatória à masturbação. Claro que ela exige muito mais imaginação de nossa parte.

Der Teufel ist ein Optimist, wenn er meint er könnte den Menschen schlechter machen.

Der Aphorismus deckt sich nie mit der Wahrheit; er ist entweder eine halbe Wahrheit oder anderthalb.

Signori, chi ha qualcosa da dire si faccia avanti, e taccia.

Maschinelles Leben fördert, künstlerische Umgebung lähmt die innere Poesie.

Wer Meinungen von sich gibt, darf sich auf Widersprüchen nicht ertappen lassen. Wer Gedanken hat, denkt auch zwischen den Widersprüchen.

Das Übel gedeiht nie besser, als wenn ein Ideal davorsteht

Much earlier in this century an Austrian journalist, Karl Kraus, pointed out that if you actually perceived the true reality behind the news you would run, screaming, into the streets. I have run screaming into the streets dozens of times but have always managed to return home in time for dinner-and usually an hour early so that I can help in the preparation.

I have often been asked to be fair and view a matter from all sides. I did so, hoping something might improve if I viewed all sides of it. But the result was the same. So I went back to viewing things only from one side, which saves me a lot of work and disappointment. For it is comforting to regard something as bad and be able use one’s prejudice as an excuse.

Wenn ich nur ein Telephon habe, der Wald  wird sich finden! Ohne Telephon kann man nur  deshalb nicht leben, weil es das Telephon gibt.  Ohne Wald wird man nicht leben können, auch wenn's längst keinen Wald mehr geben wird. Dies gilt für die Menschheit. Wer über ihren Idealen lebt, wird doch ein Sklave ihrer Bedürfnisse sein und leichter Ersatz für den Wald als für das Telephon finden. Die Phantasie hat ein Surrogat an der Technik gefunden; die Technik ist ein Surrogat, für das es keines gibt. Die Andern, die nicht den Wald, wohl aber das Telephon in sich haben, werden daran verarmen, daß es außen keine Wälder gibt. Die gibt es nicht, weil es innen und außen Telephone gibt. Aber weil es sie gibt, kann man ohne sie nicht leben. Denn die technischen Dinge hängen mit dein Geist so zusammen, daß eine Leere entsteht, weil sie da sind, und ein Vakuum, wenn sie nicht da sind. Was sich innerhalb der Zeit begibt, ist das unentbehrliche Nichts.

War, at first, is the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off.

One of my father’s purposes in going to Vienna was to see a journalist by the name of Karl Kraus. I do not know what they discussed, though they probably concerned themselves with Jewish matters and quite possibly with the problem of the translation into literary German of the Yiddish poems of Moritz Rosenfeld, the New York garment worker-poet, whom father had ‘‘discovered.’’ I remember being taken into Kraus’s apartment in an old-fashioned Vienna apartment house, and there I remember what seemed to me a confusion and disorder which I have never seen equaled elsewhere.

more typical essay is the one on Karl Kraus, of which Kraus confessed that the only thing he understood was that it was about him.

Quando il sole della cultura è basso, anche i nani hanno l'aspetto di giganti.

Sexuality poorly repressed unsettles some families; well repressed, it unsettles the whole world.” Karl Kraus

Miten paljon mies antaisikaan naiselle, jos tämä rakastaisi miestä miehen itsensä vuoksi!

Man hat mich oft gebeten, gerecht zu sein und eine Sache von allen Seiten zu betrachten. Ich habe es getan, in der Hoffnung, daß eine Sache vielleicht dadurch besser werden könnte, daß ich sie von allen Seiten betrachte. Aber ich kam zu dem gleichen Resultat. So blieb ich dabei, eine Sache nur von einer Seite zu betrachten, wodurch ich mir viel Arbeit und Enttäuschung erspare. Denn es ist tröstlich, eine Sache für schlecht zu halten und sich dabei auf ein Vorurteil ausreden zu können.

Daß die Meinungsfreiheit eine Errungenschaft des Liberalismus ist, sollte nie vergessen lassen, daß sie auch der Rotz der Kultur ist.

There are two kinds of writers. With the first, content and form belong together like soul and body; with the second, they match each other like body and clothes.

Wenn die Sonne der Kultur niedrig steht, werfen selbst Zwerge lange Schatten

La ortodoxia de la razón idiotiza a la humanidad mucho más que cualquier religión. Karl Kraus

Como había dicho Karl Kraus, se podía rechazar su praxis a la vez que se deseaba que se conservasen «en su condición de amenaza constante sobre las cabezas de los que poseen riquezas; de los que, para preservarlas, envían implacables a los otros a los frentes del hambre y del honor de la patria, mientras pretenden consolarnos diciendo y repitiendo que la riqueza no es lo más importante en esta vida. Que Dios nos conserve para siempre el comunismo, para que esta chusma no se vuelva todavía más desvergonzada ... y para que, por lo menos, cuando se vayan a dormir sufran pesadillas».

Yetersizce bastırılmış cinsellik bazı aileleri sarsıyor; iyice bastırılmış cinsellik ise bütün dünyayı.

the journalistic jargon of the newspaper is the highest expression of experiential poverty – a lesson that Benjamin learned from Karl Kraus.8 As Benjamin comments, ‘every morning brings us the news of the globe and yet we are poor in noteworthy stories.

[on Georg Trakl:] it was always inconceivable to me that he could live. His madness wrestled with godly things.

Birçok insan hastadır. Fakat yalnızca psikanalistler bunu gurur duyulacak bir şey olarak görür.

«Da un ospedale da campo è arrivata» dice Karl Kraus «una cartolina che in poche righe riesce a cancellare tutti i poemi epici composti dai cantori di guerra in quattro anni. Le poche righe portano il timbro del Feldspital 1301, quello della censura e la firma di un piccolo soldato, un attendente, che scrive alla famiglia di Franz Janowitz: “Con la mano che trema mi permetto di scrivere per dare la notizia che il mio signore, il tenente Janowitz, è mancato il 4 di novembre per le ferite qui all’ospedale. Avevo chiesto di poter venire a portare gli effetti personali, ma la domanda me l’hanno respinta. Ho pianto molte lacrime per lui. Onore alla sua cara memoria. Le mie condoglianze più profonde. Dio ha voluto che fosse così. Fedele servitore Josef Greunz”. Dall’ospedale mi hanno rispedito» dice Karl Kraus «la mia ultima lettera per Janowitz. E c’è un’annotazione: “Trasferito. Indirizzo sconosciuto”.

»Den Weltmarkt erobern«: Weil Händler so sprachen, mußten Krieger so handeln. Seitdem wird erobert, wenngleich nicht der Weltmarkt.

Kindspech ist eben das, womit man auf die Welt kommt.

Nachdem er sich in der anarchistischen Partei unmöglich gemacht hatte, blieb ihm nichts mehr übrig, als ein nützliches Mitglied der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft zu werden und in die Sozialdemokratie einzutreten.