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

What has become alien to men is the human component of culture, its closest part, which upholds them against the world. They make common cause with the world against themselves, and the most alienated condition of all, the omnipresence of commodities, their own conversion into appendages of machinery, is for them a mirage of closeness.

When all actions are mathematically calculated, they also take on a stupid quality.

Lies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion.

The new human type cannot be properly understood without awareness of what he is continuously exposed to from the world of things about him, even in his most secret innervations.

Rampant technolgy eliminates luxury, but not by declaring privilege a human right; rather, it does so by both raising the general standard of living and cutting off the possibility of fulfilment.

Everything that has ever been called folk art has always reflected domination.