Karl Kraus Quotes

198 Sourced Quotes

In a well-run mental household there ought to be a thorough cleaning at the threshold of consciousness a few times a year.

Karl Kraus
A bibliophile has approximately the same relationship to literature as a philatelist to geography.

Karl Kraus
The triumph of morality: A thief who has broken into a bedroom claims his sense of shame had been outraged, and by threatening theoccupants with exposure of an immoral act he blackmails them into not bringing charges for burglary.

Karl Kraus
I have decided many a stylistic problem first by my head, then by heads or tails.

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

Karl Kraus
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.

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

Karl Kraus
A good writer does not receive anywhere near the number of poison-pen letters that is commonly assumed. Among a hundred jackassesthere are not ten who will admit to being jackasses, and at most one who will put it in writing.

Karl Kraus
Science is spectrum analysis. Art is photosynthesis.

Karl Kraus
Nowadays the thief cannot be distinguished from his victim. Neither has any valuable objects on him.

Karl Kraus
Ask your neighbor only about things you know better yourself. Then his advice could prove valuable.

Karl Kraus
A snob is unreliable. The work he praises might just be good.

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

Karl Kraus
It so often happened to me that someone who shared my opinion kept the larger share for himself that I am now forewarned and offer people only ideas.

Karl Kraus
Who is going to cast out an error to which he has given birth and replace it with an adopted truth?

Karl Kraus
What are all the orgies of Bacchus when compared to the intoxication of someone who completely surrenders to continence!

Karl Kraus
It is not true that one cannot live without a woman. It is simply that one cannot have lived without one.

Karl Kraus
I have drawn from the well of language many a thought which I do not have and which I could not put into words.

Karl Kraus
Humanity is the washerwoman of society that wrings out its dirty laundry in tears.

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

Karl Kraus
The unattractive thing about chauvinism is not so much the aversion to other nations as the love of one's own.

Karl Kraus
What is a historian? Someone who doesn't write well enough to work on a daily.

Karl Kraus
A historian is not always a prophet facing backwards, but a journalist is always someone who afterwards knew everything beforehand.

Karl Kraus
I can say with pride that I have spent days and nights not reading anything, and that with unflagging energy I use every moment toacquire gradually an encyclopedic lack of education.

Karl Kraus
Many talents preserve their precociousness right into old age.

Karl Kraus
A school without grades must have been concocted by someone who was drunk on non-alcoholic wine.

Karl Kraus
Penalties serve to deter those who are not inclined to commit any crimes.

Karl Kraus
It is a mystery to me how a theologian can be praised for having brought himself to disbelieve dogmas. I've always thought that those who have brought themselves to believe in dogmas merit the true recognition owing a heroic deed.

Karl Kraus
My readers think that I write for the day because my writings are based on the day. So I shall have to wait until my writings are obsolete. Then they may acquire timeliness.

Karl Kraus
One cannot dictate an aphorism to a typist. It would take too long.

Karl Kraus