Quote

It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.

Karl Kraus

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Karl Kraus
Age: 62 †
Born: 1874
Born: March 28
Died: 1936
Died: June 12
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
Jicin
Ability
Something
Console
Idealism
Ideals
Loss
Style

More quotes by Karl Kraus

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My request that my writing be read twice has aroused great indignation. Unjustly so. After all, I do not ask that they be read once.
Karl Kraus
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A good stylist should have narcissistic enjoyment as he works. He must be able to objectivize his work to such an extent that he catches himself feeling envious and has to jog his memory to find that he is himself the creator. In short, he must display that highest degree of objectivity which the world calls vanity.
Karl Kraus
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A good writer does not receive anywhere near the number of poison-pen letters that is commonly assumed. Among a hundred jackassesthere are not ten who will admit to being jackasses, and at most one who will put it in writing.
Karl Kraus
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It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.
Karl Kraus
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A school without grades must have been concocted by someone who was drunk on non-alcoholic wine.
Karl Kraus
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It is the mission of the press to disseminate intellect and at the same time destroy receptivity to it.
Karl Kraus
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Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence.
Karl Kraus
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Chastity always takes its toll. In some it produces pimples in others, sex laws.
Karl Kraus
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Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.
Karl Kraus
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There is a cultural taste which tries very hard to get rid of the lice in a fur coat. There is another which tolerates the lice and thinks the coat can be worn with them in it. And finally there is a taste which regards the lice as the most important thing about the coat and consequently places the coat at the lice's disposal.
Karl Kraus
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The world is a prison in which solitary confinement is preferable.
Karl Kraus
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Curses on the law! Most of my fellow citizens are the sorry consequences of uncommitted abortions.
Karl Kraus
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What torture, this life in society! Often someone is obliging enough to offer me a light, and in order to oblige him I have to fish a cigarette out of my pocket.
Karl Kraus
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Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.
Karl Kraus
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This is something that I cannot get over -- that a whole line could be written by half a man, that a work could be built on the quicksand of a character.
Karl Kraus
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Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower.
Karl Kraus
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It is either a half-truth or a truth and a half.
Karl Kraus
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Talent is often a defect in character.
Karl Kraus
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The development of technology will leave only one problem: the infirmity of human nature.
Karl Kraus
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When I don't make any progress, it is because I have bumped into the wall of language. Then I draw back with a bloody head. And would like to go on.
Karl Kraus