Thought as such… is an act of negation, of resistance to that which is forced upon it; this is what thought has inherited from its archetype, the relation between labor and material. Today, when ideologues tend more than ever to encourage thought to be positive, they cleverly note that positivity runs precisely counter to thought, and that it takes friendly persuasion by social authority to accustom thought to positivity.

The culture industry not so much adapts to the reactions of its customers as it counterfeits them.

No harm comes to man from outside alone: dumbness is the objective spirit.

The individual mirrors in his individuation the preordained social laws of exploitation, however mediated.

None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace.

The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us.

Kitsch parodies catharsis...It is in vain to try to draw the boundaries abstractly between aesthetic fiction and kitsch's emotional plunder. It is a poison admixed to all art; excising it is today one of art's despairing efforts.