261 Quotes by Theodor W. Adorno

It is one of the basic tenets of fascist leadership to keep primary libidinal energy on an unconscious level so as to divert its manifestations in a way suitable to political ends.

Life has changed into a timeless succession of shocks, interspaced with empty, paralysed intervals.

In psycho-analysis nothing is true except the exaggerations.

The neon signs which hang over our cities and outshine the natural light of the night with their own are comets presaging the natural disaster of society, its frozen death.

The sublime is only a step removed from the ridiculous.

Rampant technolgy eliminates luxury, but not by declaring privilege a human right; rather, it does so by both raising the general standard of living and cutting off the possibility of fulfilment.

Death is imposed only on creatures, not their creations, and has therefore always appeared in art in a broken form: as allegory.

It is Proust’s courtesy to spare the reader the embarrassment of believing himself cleverer than the author.

In the end the soul is itself the longing of the soulless for salvation.