Quotes from Karl Kraus

Immortality is the only thing which doesn't tolerate being postponed.

Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves.

The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he

Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram

Nowadays the thief cannot be distinguished from his victim. Neither has any valuable objects on him.

Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match

Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots.

A historian is often only a journalist facing backwards.

A woman occasionally is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation.

A woman is, occasionally, quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation. It takes an abundance of imagination, to be sure.

When I want to go to sleep, I must first get a whole menagerie of voices to shut up. You wouldn't believe what a racket they make in my room.

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don't come into the world.

One can translate an editorial but not a poem. For one can go across the border naked but not without one's skin; for, unlike clothes, one cannot get a new skin.

Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.

How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe the lies when they see them in print.

If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies.

When I don't make any progress, it is because I have bumped into the wall of language. Then I draw back with a bloody head. And would like to go on.

An aphorism never coincides with the truth: it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.

I and my public understand each other very well: it does not hear what I say, and I don't say what it wants to hear.

Education is what most receive, many pass on, and few possess.

Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time writing essays.

An aphorism is never exactly true. It is either a half-truth or a truth and a half.