333 Quotes by Karl Kraus

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

Ideas are transplanted by splitting, thoughts by sprouting.

We are sacrificing ourselves for our ready-made goods; we are consumers and live in such a way that the means may consume the end.

Through my satire I make little people so big that afterwards they are worthy objects of my satire and no one can reproach me any longer.

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.

If one reads a newspaper only for information, one does not learn the truth, not even the truth about the paper. The truth is that the newspaper is not a statement of contents but the contents themselves; and more than that, it is an instigator.

The blind won’t admit that I have eyes in my head, and the deaf say that I’m dumb.

One cleans someone else’s threshold of consciousness only if one’s own home is dirty.

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.