Quotes from Karl Kraus

You don't even live once.

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

War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

There is no more unhappy being under the sun than a fetishist who pines for a boot and has to content himself with an entire woman.

Satire that the censor understands is rightly censored.

In Berlin, things are serious but not hopeless. In Vienna, they are hopeless but not serious.

Intercourse with a woman is sometimes a satisfactory substitute for masturbation. But it takes a lot of imagination to make it work.

My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.

Jealousy is a dog's bark which attracts thieves.

Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy.

The making of a journalist: no ideas and the ability to express them.

A weak man has doubts before a decision, a stong man has them afterwards.

Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence.

To be perfect, one lacks only a defect.

Heinrich Heine so loosened the corsets of the German language that today every little salesman can fondle her breasts.

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people meaner.

Ma dove troverò mai il tempo per non leggere tante cose?

I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.

How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.

I have to do this, as long as it is at all possible; for if those who are obliged to look after commas had always made sure they were in the right place, then Shanghai would not be burning.

The real end of the world is the destruction of the spirit; the other kind depends on the insignificant attempt to see whether after such a destruction the world can go on.

Quien calla una palabra es su dueño; quien la pronuncia es su esclavo.

Chastity always takes its toll. In some it produces pimples; in others, sex laws.