Indeed, happiness is nothing other than being encompassed, an after-image of the original shelter within the mother. But for this reason no one who is happy can know that he is so. To see happiness, he would have to pass out of it: to be as if already born. He who says he is happy lies, and in invoking happiness, sins against it. He alone keeps faith who says: I was happy.
Theodor AdornoNot only is the self entwined in society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense.
Theodor AdornoSuffering has as much right to be expressed as a martyr has to cry out. So it may have been false to say that writing poetry after Auschwitz is impossible.
Theodor AdornoHe who has loved and who betrays love does harm not only to the image of the past, but to the past itself.
Theodor Adorno