Karl Kraus

Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work.

The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span.

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.

Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match.

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

Sexuality poorly repressed unsettles some families; well repressed, it unsettles the whole world.

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

If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies.

Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he has, the worse he writes.

An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.

Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.

Progress celebrates victories over nature. Progress makes purses out of human skin. When people were traveling in mail coaches, the world got ahead better than it does now that salesmen fly through the air. What good is speed if the brain has oozed out on the way? How will the heirs of this age be taught the most basic motions that are necessary to activate the most complicated machines? Nature can rely on progress; it will avenge it for the outrage it has perpetrated on it.

Moral responsibility is what is lacking in a man when he demands it of a woman.

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

Matrimony is the union of meanness and martyrdom.

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.'

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.

The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he.

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

Children play soldier. That makes sense. But why do soldiers play children?

To me all men are equal: there are jackasses everywhere, and I have the same contempt for them all.