Karl Kraus Quotes

Jealousy is a dog's bark which attracts thieves.

The discovery of the North Pole is one of those realities which could not be avoided. It is the wages which human perseverance pays itself when it thinks that something is taking too long. The world needed a discoverer of the North Pole, and in all areas of social activity, merit was less important here than opportunity.

A child learns to discard his ideals, whereas a grown-up never wears out his short pants.

War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.

The agitator seizes the word. The artist is seized by it.

Many talents preserve their precociousness right into old age.

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

Cosmetics is the science of a woman's cosmos.

To me it's still a greater miracle when a fly flies than when a human being undertakes to do so.

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

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

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.

War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off.

There are women who are not beautiful but only look that way.

There is a shortage of clerks. Everyone is going into journalism.

The development of technology will leave only one problem: the infirmity of human nature.

You don't even live once.

Curses on the law! Most of my fellow citizens are the sorry consequences of uncommitted abortions.

When a man is treated like a beast, he says, 'After all, I'm human.' When he behaves like a beast, he says 'After all, I'm only human.

A philistine is habitually bored and looks for things that won't bore him. An artist finds things boring, but is never bored.

To be perfect, one lacks only a defect.

Psychoanalysis is the mental illness it purports to cure

How unreliable is the woman caught being faithful! Today she is faithful to you, tomorrow to another.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

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

News reports stand up as people, and people wither into editorials. Clichés walk around on two legs while men are having theirs shot off.

Mankind became hysterical in the Middle Ages because it poorly repressed the sexual impressions of its Greek boyhood.

Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear.

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.

To be human is erroneous.

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.

Prussia: freedom of movement with a muzzle. Austria: an isolation cell in which screaming is allowed.

Let language be the divining rod that finds the sources of thought.

Solitude would be ideal if you could pick the people to avoid.

The immorality of men triumphs over the amorality of women.

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.

It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.

Artists have a right to be modest and a duty to be vain.

I and life: The case was settled chivalrously. The opponents parted without having made up.

Scandal begins when the police put a stop to it.

The real truths are those that can be invented.

When I want to go to sleep, I must first get a whole menagerie of voices to shut up. You wouldn't believe what a racket they make in my room.

Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.

He who sleeps half a day has won half a life.

This is something that I cannot get over -- that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character.

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

Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots.

I have often been asked to be fair and view a matter from all sides. I did so, hoping that something might improve if I viewed allsides of it. But the result was the same. So I went back to viewing things only from one side, which saves me a lot of work and disappointment. For it is comforting to regard something as bad and to be able to use one's prejudice as an excuse.