Karl Kraus Quotes

The woman takes one for all, and the man all for one.

If I return some people's greetings, I do so only to give them their greeting back.

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

Most writers have no other quality than the reader: taste. But the latter has the better taste, because he does not write - and the best if he does not read.

The secret of the demagogue is to appear as dumb as his audience so that these people can believe themselves as smart as he.

To divide people into sadists and masochists is almost as foolish as dividing them into eaters and digesters. In all cases one must disregard abnormalities; after all, there are people who are better at digesting than they are at eating and vice versa. As regards masochism and sadism, it is safe to say that a healthy person displays both perversities. The only ugly thing in each case is the word. The one derived from the novelist Leopold von Sacher-Masoch is particularly degrading, and it is hard not to let one's taste for things be spoiled by the designation. Nevertheless, a man with an artistic imagination will manage to let an authentic woman turn him into a masochist and an inauthentic one into a sadist. One knocks the latter's educated unnaturalness out of her until the woman is revealed. If she already is a woman, the only thing left to do is adore her.

The superman is a premature ideal, one that presupposes a man.

I like to hold a monologue with women. But a dialogue with myself is more stimulating.

My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious.

How unreliable is the woman caught being faithful! Today she is faithful to you, tomorrow to another.

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

I no longer have collaborators. I used to be envious of them. They repel those readers whom I want to lose myself.

Psychology is as useless as directions for using poison.

Hate must make a person productive; otherwise one might as well love.

Progress … has subordinated the purpose of life to the means of subsistence and turned us into the nuts and bolts for our tools.