Karl Kraus Quotes

The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.

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

[on Georg Trakl:] it was always inconceivable to me that he could live. His madness wrestled with godly things.

Es gibt Menschen, die es zeitlebens einem Bettler nachtragen, daß sie ihm nichts gegeben haben.

Satire that the censor understands is rightly censored.

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.

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.

Daß die Meinungsfreiheit eine Errungenschaft des Liberalismus ist, sollte nie vergessen lassen, daß sie auch der Rotz der Kultur ist.

War, at first, is 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.

You don't even live once.

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.

Nachdem er sich in der anarchistischen Partei unmöglich gemacht hatte, blieb ihm nichts mehr übrig, als ein nützliches Mitglied der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft zu werden und in die Sozialdemokratie einzutreten.

A “seducer” who boasts of initiating women into the mystery of love is like a stranger who arrives at a railroad station and offers to show the sights to a tourist guide.

One must read all writers twice - the good as well as the bad. The one kind will be recognized; the other, unmasked.