Quote: Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: 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]
Quote: If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: 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]
Quote: Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: 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]
Quote: Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: 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]
Quote: In these great times which I knew when they were this small; which will become small again, provided they have time left for it in these times in which things are happening that could not be imagined and in which what can no longer be imagined must happen, for if one could imagine it, it would not happen; in these serious times which have died laughing at the thought that they might become serious; which, surprised by their own tragedy, are reaching for diversion and, catching themselves red-handed, are groping for words... in these times you should not expect any words of my own from me -- none but these words which barely manage to prevent silence from being misinterpreted. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: The press, that goiter of the world, swells up with the desire for conquest and bursts with the achievements which every day brings. A week has room for the boldest climax of the human drive for expansion. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: Matrimony is the union of meanness and martyrdom. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: Intercourse with a woman is sometimes a satisfactory substitute for masturbation. But it takes a lot of imagination to make it work. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: News reports stand up as people, and people wither into editorials. Clichs walk around on two legs while men are having theirs shot off. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: Progress celebrates victories over nature. Progress makes purses out of human skin. When people were traveling in mail coaches, the world got ahead better than it does now that salesmen fly through the air. What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way? How will the heirs of this age be taught the most basic motions that are necessary to activate the most complicated machines? Nature can rely on progress; it will avenge it for the outrage it has perpetrated on it. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: Progress, under whose feet the grass mourns and the forest turns into paper from which newspaper plants grow, has subordinated the purpose of life to the means of subsistence and turned us into the nuts and bolts for our tools. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: The immorality of men triumphs over the amorality of women. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: The psychoanalysts pick our dreams as if they were our pockets. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: The world has become uglier since it began to look into a mirror every day; so let us settle for the mirror image and do without an inspection of the original. [Karl Kraus]
Quote: Scandal begins when the police put a stop to it. [Karl Kraus]