Today self-consciousness no longer means anything but reflection on the ego as embarrassment, as realization of impotence knowing that one is nothing.

Fascism is itself less ideological, in so far as it openly proclaims the principle of domination that is elsewhere concealed.

Work while you work, play while you play this is a basic rule of repressive self-discipline.

Quality is decided by the depth at which the work incorporates the alternatives within itself, and so master them.

Very evil people cannot really be imagined dying.

The Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant.

There can be no poetry after Auschwitz.

The capacity for fear and for happiness are the same, the unrestricted openness to experience amounting to self-abandonment in which the vanquished rediscovers himself.

The task of art today is to bring chaos into order. Artistic productivity is the capacity for being voluntarily involuntary.

Intelligence is a moral category.