Karl Kraus Quotes - Page 2

I master only the language of others. Mine does with me what it wants.

Education is what most receive, many pass on, and few possess.

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

The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt.

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

Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match.

A white lie is always pardonable. But he who tells the truth without compulsion merits no leniency.

I trim my opponents to fit my arrows.

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

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

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.

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

Morality is the tendency to pour out the baby with the bathwater.

Curses on the law! Most of my fellow citizens are the sorry consequences of uncommitted abortions.

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

Barbershop conversations are irrefutable proof that heads exist for the sake of hair.

I have often been asked to be fair and view a matter from all sides. I did so, hoping that something might improve if I viewed allsides 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 to be able to use one's prejudice as an excuse.

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

One of the most widespread diseases is diagnosis.

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.

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

Many desire to kill me, and many wish to spend an hour chatting with me. The law protects me from the former.

A healthy man is content with a woman. An erotic man is content with a stocking to get to a woman. A sick man is content with thestocking.

Newspapers have roughly the same relationship to life as fortune-tellers to metaphysics.

Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work.