The positive element of kitsch lies in the fact that it sets free for a moment the glimmering realization that you have wasted your life.

Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.

Because thought has by now been perverted into the solving of assigned problems, even what is not assigned is processed like a problem.

The film has succeeded in transforming subjects so indistinguishably into social functions, that those wholly encompassed, no longer aware of any conflict, enjoy their own dehumanization as something human, as the joy of warmth. The total interconnectedness of the culture industry, omitting nothing, is one with total social delusion.

He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest.

Today self-consciousness no longer means anything but reflection on the ego as embarrassment, as realization of impotence: knowing that one is nothing.

As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities.