He who matures early lives in anticipation.

The objective tendency of the Enlightenment, to wipe out the power of images over man, is not matched by any subjective progress on the part of enlightened thinking towards freedom from images.

Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

Not only is the self entwined in society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense.

A German is someone who cannot tell a lie without believing it himself.

There's not much need for prophets who are in synch with their society.

The aim of jazz is the mechanical reproduction of a regressive moment, a castration symbolism. 'Give up your masculinity, let yourself be castrated,' the eunuchlike sound of the jazz band both mocks and proclaims, 'and you will be rewarded, accepted into a fraternity which shares the mystery of impotence with you, a mystery revealed at the moment of the initiation rite.