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Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.

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
Handmaiden
Language
Mother
Thought

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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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.
Karl Kraus
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If one reads a newspaper only for information, one does not learn the truth, not even the truth about the paper. The truth is that the newspaper is not a statement of contents but the contents themselves and more than that, it is an instigator.
Karl Kraus
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Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots.
Karl Kraus
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The unattractive thing about chauvinism is not so much the aversion to other nations as the love of one's own.
Karl Kraus
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The triumph of morality: A thief who has broken into a bedroom claims his sense of shame had been outraged, and by threatening theoccupants with exposure of an immoral act he blackmails them into not bringing charges for burglary.
Karl Kraus
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We are sacrificing ourselves for our ready-made goods we are consumers and live in such a way that the means may consume the end.
Karl Kraus
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They judge lest they be judged.
Karl Kraus
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A father's pride, laid on thick, has always made me wish that the fellow had at least experienced some pain during procreation.
Karl Kraus
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A woman occasionally is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation.
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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Stupidity gets up early that is why events are accustomed to happening in the morning.
Karl Kraus
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A child learns to discard his ideals, whereas a grown-up never wears out his short pants.
Karl Kraus
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Medicine: Your money and your life!
Karl Kraus
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The blind won't admit that I have eyes in my head, and the deaf say that I'm dumb.
Karl Kraus
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Journalists write because they have nothing to say, and have something to say because they write.
Karl Kraus
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Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.
Karl Kraus
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The real end of the world is the destruction of the spirit the other kind depends on the insignificant attempt to see whether after such a destruction the world can go on.
Karl Kraus
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When I want to go to sleep, I must first get a whole menagerie of voices to shut up. You wouldn't believe what a racket they make in my room.
Karl Kraus
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The agitator seizes the word. The artist is seized by it.
Karl Kraus