Thus is order ensured: some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game. It is as if the class from which independent intellectuals have defected takes its revenge, by pressing its demands home in the very domain where the deserter seeks refuge.
Theodor AdornoArt is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.
Theodor AdornoTriviality is evil - triviality, that is, in the form of consciousness and mind that adapts itself to the world as it is, that obeys the principle of inertia. And this principle of inertia truly is what is radically evil.
Theodor AdornoOnly a humanity to whom death has become as indifferent as its members, that has itself died, can inflict it administratively on innumerable people.
Theodor AdornoThe human is indissolubly linked with imitation: a human being only becomes human at all by imitating other human beings.
Theodor Adorno