The usual reproach against the essay, that it is fragmentary and random, itself assumes the givenness of totality and suggests that man is in control of this totality. The desire of the essay, though, is not to filter the eternal out of the transitory; it wants, rather, to make the transitory eternal.

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

In his state of complete powerlessness the individual perceives the time he has left to live as a brief reprieve.

Proletarian language is dictated by hunger. The poor chew words to fill their bellies.

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

The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass available.

The power of the culture industry's ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness