Karl Kraus Quotes

Nowadays the thief cannot be distinguished from his victim. Neither has any valuable objects on him.

Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.

Love and art do not embrace what is beautiful but what is made beautiful by this embrace.

Nothing is more horrible than my self in the mirror of hysteria. Nothing is more vulgar than my style in the hands of another. Toimitate me is to punish me.

One can translate an editorial but not a poem. For one can go across the border naked but not without one's skin; for, unlike clothes, one cannot get a new skin.

Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.

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

Psychoanalysis: a rabbit that was swallowed by a boa constrictor just wanted to see what it was like in there.

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

Sorrento, August. For two weeks now I haven't heard a German word or understood an Italian one. This way one can manage to live with people; everything goes like clockwork and no irksome misunderstanding can arise.

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

So-called psychoanalysis is the occupation of lustful rationalists who trace everything in the world to sexual causes
with the exception of their occupation.

I am not for women but against men.

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

Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear.

War is, at first, 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.

Contemporaries live from second hand to mouth.

Mankind became hysterical in the Middle Ages because it poorly repressed the sexual impressions of its Greek boyhood.

In case of doubt, decide in favor of what is correct.

A snob is unreliable. The work he praises might just be good.

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

The tyranny of necessity grants its slaves three kinds of freedom: opinion free from intellect, entertainment free from art, and orgies free from love.

Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.

Nationalism is the love which ties me to the blockheads of my country, to the insultors of my way of life, and to the desecrators of my language.

There is a shortage of clerks. Everyone is going into journalism.

To be perfect, one lacks only a defect.

One's need for loneliness is not satisfied if one sits at a table alone. There must be empty chairs as well.

A historian is often only a journalist facing backwards.

The new psychiatrists say that everything and anything can be traced back to sexual causes. Their method, for example, could be explained as the eroticism of father confessors.

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.

Ideas are transplanted by splitting, thoughts by sprouting.

An illusion of depth often occurs if a blockhead is a muddlehead at the same time

Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.

Sexual enlightenment is that hardhearted process which for hygienic reasons forbids young people to satisfy their curiosity themselves.

When I want to go to sleep, I must first get a whole menagerie of voices to shut up. You wouldn't believe what a racket they make in my room.

What the teachers digest, the pupils eat.

Scandal begins when the police put a stop to it.

It is not true that one cannot live without a woman. It is simply that one cannot have lived without one.

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

Penalties serve to deter those who are not inclined to commit any crimes.

Speech is the mother, not the handmaid, of thought.

It so often happened to me that someone who shared my opinion kept the larger share for himself that I am now forewarned and offer people only ideas.

The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back.

There are two kinds of writers, those who are and those who aren't. With the first, content and form belong together like soul and body; with the second, they match each other like body and clothes.

A school without grades must have been concocted by someone who was drunk on non-alcoholic wine.

Language is the only chimera whose illusory power is endless, the inexhaustibility which keeps life from being impoverished. Let men learn to serve language.

Religion, morality, and patriotism are feelings that are manifested only when they are outraged.

Morality is a burglar's tool whose merit lies in never being left behind at the scene of the crime.

My readers think that I write for the day because my writings are based on the day. So I shall have to wait until my writings are obsolete. Then they may acquire timeliness.

Matrimony is the union of meanness and martyrdom.

Stupidity gets up early; that is why events are accustomed to happening in the morning.

Blushing, palpitations, a bad conscience
this is what you get if you haven't sinned.

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

If by day art is in the service of business, the evenings are devoted to the businessman's enjoyment of it. That is asking a lot of art, but art and the businessman make it work.

Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower.

A woman occasionally is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation.

Cosmetics is the science of a woman's cosmos.

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

My request that my writing be read twice has aroused great indignation. Unjustly so. After all, I do not ask that they be read once.

Many share my views with me. But I don't share them with them.

Children today laugh at fathers who tell them about dragons. It is necessary to make fear a required subject; otherwise children will never learn it.

That an author takes a bow is not humility but presumption. What does the paleface want on the stage afterwards? But before the performance he had even less business there
and paying him royalties is equivalent to cheating the actors.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.

Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots.

Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don't come into the world.

I knew a man who carried his education in his vest pocket because there was more room there than in his head.

Let my style capture all the sounds of my time. This should make it an annoyance to my contemporaries. But later generations should hold it to their ears like a seashell in which there is the music of an ocean of mud.

What torture, this life in society! Often someone is obliging enough to offer me a light, and in order to oblige him I have to fish a cigarette out of my pocket.

In a hollow head there is much room for knowledge.

Satire chooses and knows no objects. It arises by fleeing from them and their forcing themselves upon it.

Many women would like to dream with men without sleeping with them. Someone should point out to them that this is utterly impossible.

Medicine: Your money and your life!

An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.

I saw a poet chase a butterfly in a meadow. He put his net on a bench where a boy sat reading a book. It's a misfortune that it is usually the other way round.

In a well-run mental household there ought to be a thorough cleaning at the threshold of consciousness a few times a year.

Where do I find the time for not reading so many books?

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

Since the law prohibits the keeping of wild animals and I get no enjoyment from pets, I prefer to remain unmarried.

Lord, forgive them, for they know what they do!

Moral responsibility is what is lacking in a man when he demands it of a woman.

A fine world in which man reproaches woman with fulfilling his heart's desire!

Truth is a clumsy servant that breaks the dishes while washing them.

Psychoanalysis is the mental illness it purports to cure

I can say with pride that I have spent days and nights not reading anything, and that with unflagging energy I use every moment toacquire gradually an encyclopedic lack of education.

When I take up my pen, nothing can happen to me. Fate, remember that.

A good stylist should have narcissistic enjoyment as he works. He must be able to objectivize his work to such an extent that he catches himself feeling envious and has to jog his memory to find that he is himself the creator. In short, he must display that highest degree of objectivity which the world calls vanity.

When I don't make any progress, it is because I have bumped into the wall of language. Then I draw back with a bloody head. And would like to go on.

How unreliable is the woman caught being faithful! Today she is faithful to you, tomorrow to another.

A man's eroticism is a woman's sexuality.

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

He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent.

He who sleeps half a day has won half a life.

Jealousy is a dog's bark which attracts thieves.

The little stations are very proud because the expresses have to pass them by.

The pimp is the executive organ of immorality. The executive organ of morality is the blackmailer.

Ingratitude is often disproportionate to the benefaction received.

A plagiarist should be made to copy the author a hundred times.

It is the mission of the press to disseminate intellect and at the same time destroy receptivity to it.

A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.

How do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists, then believe what they read.