Words matter. These are the best Karl Kraus Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
There are people who can never forgive a beggar for their not having given him anything.
Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don’t come into the world.
Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.
I and life: The case was settled chivalrously. The opponents parted without having made up.
A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.
I am already so popular that anyone who vilifies me becomes more popular than I am.
Matrimony is the union of meanness and martyrdom.
How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.
Curses on the law! Most of my fellow citizens are the sorry consequences of uncommitted abortions.
Sexuality poorly repressed unsettles some families; well repressed, it unsettles the whole world.
Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.
Education is what most receive, many pass on, and few possess.
The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span.
To me all men are equal: there are jackasses everywhere, and I have the same contempt for them all.
Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.
Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy.
Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram.
Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.
The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back.
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.
When a man is treated like a beast, he says, ‘After all, I’m human.’ When he behaves like a beast, he says ‘After all, I’m only human.’
If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies.
He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent.
You’d be surprised how hard it can often be to translate an action into an idea.
Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower.
