Karl Kraus (1874 – 1936)
Austrian journalist, satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet.
You don't even live once.
To be human is erroneous.
Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which regards itself as therapy.
The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.
A woman is, occasionally, quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation. It takes an abundance of imagination, to be sure.
Der Fortschritt feiert Pyrrhussiege über die Natur.
True jealously wants not only fidelity, but the proof of fidelity as an imaginable situation. A jealous man is not content with his beloved not being unfaithful. Precisely that which he is not doing does not leave him in peace. But since there is no proving what is not done and the jealous man insists on proof, he ends up settling on proof of unfaithfulness.
Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence.
Moral responsibility is what is lacking in a man when he demands it of a woman.
The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater the distance from which it looks back.
A fine world in which man reproaches woman with fulfilling his heart's desire!
Progress … has subordinated the purpose of life to the means of subsistence and turned us into the nuts and bolts for our tools.
War is at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn't any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone's being worse off.
The real truths are those that can be invented.
I have often been asked to be fair and view a matter from all sides. I did so, hoping something might improve if I viewed all sides of it. But the result was the same. So I went back to viewing things only from one side, which saves me a lot of work and disappointment. For it is comforting to regard something as bad and be able use one's prejudice as an excuse.
What is my love? That I amalgamate the bad features of a woman into a good picture. And my hatred? That I see the bad features in the picture of a bad man.
In one ear and out the other: this would still make the head a transit station. What I hear has to go out the same ear.
When someone has behaved like an animal, he says: "I'm only human!" But when he is treated like an animal, he says: "I'm human, too!"
I like to hold a monologue with women. But a dialogue with myself is more stimulating.
Psychoanalysis: a rabbit that was swallowed by a boa constrictor who just wanted to see what it was like in there.