And how comfortless is the thought that the sickness of the normal does not necessarily imply as its opposite the health of the sick, but that the latter usually only present, in a different way, the same disastrous pattern.

Only a humanity to whom death has become as indifferent as its members, that has itself died, can inflict it administratively on innumerable people.

The recent past always presents itself as if destroyed by catastrophes.

Jazz is the false liquidation of art - instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture.

The very people who burst with proofs of exuberant vitality could easily be taken for prepared corpses, from whom the news of their not-quite-successful decease has been withheld for reasons of population policy. Underlying the prevalent health is death. All the movements of health resemble the reflex-movements of beings whose hearts have stopped beating.

Laughing in the cultural industry is mockery of happiness.

One must have tradition in oneself, to hate it properly.