Karl Kraus Quotes

I hear noises which others don't hear and which disturb for me the music of the spheres, which others don't hear either.

A man's jealousy is a social institution, a woman's prostitution an instinct.

The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.

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

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.

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

Everyone is stopped and waiting, maitre d's, hansom cab drivers and governments. Everyone's waiting for the end. Let's hope the apocalypse is pleasant, Your Highness.

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

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

True jealously wants not only fidelity, but the proof of fidelity as an imaginable situation. A jealous man is not content with his beloved not being unfaithful. Precisely that which he is not doing does not leave him in peace. But since there is no proving what is not done and the jealous man insists on proof, he ends up settling on proof of unfaithfulness.

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

When I read, it is not acted literature; but what I write is written acting.

A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.

Many women would like to dream with men without sleeping with them. Someone should point out to them that this is utterly impossible.

Nothing is more narrow-minded than chauvinism or race hatred. To me all men are equal: there are jackasses everywhere, and I have the same contempt for them all. No petty prejudices!