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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
Language
Mother
Thought
Handmaiden

More quotes by Karl Kraus

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Let my style capture all the sounds of my time. This should make it an annoyance to my contemporaries. But later generations should hold it to their ears like a seashell in which there is the music of an ocean of mud.
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The psychoanalysts pick our dreams as if they were our pockets.
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Let language be the divining rod that finds the sources of thought.
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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.
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When I take up my pen, nothing can happen to me. Fate, remember that.
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Jealousy is a dog's bark which attracts thieves.
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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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You don't even live once.
Karl Kraus
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Prussia: freedom of movement with a muzzle. Austria: an isolation cell in which screaming is allowed.
Karl Kraus
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In the theater one must sit in such a way that one sees the audience as a dark mass. Then it cannot bother one more than it does an actor. Nothing is more disturbing than being able to distinguish individuals in the crowd.
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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Many women would like to dream with men without sleeping with them. Someone should point out to them that this is utterly impossible.
Karl Kraus
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Diplomacy is a game of chess in which the nations are checkmated.
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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Satires which the censor can understand are justly forbidden
Karl Kraus
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If you wish to form a clear judgment on your friends, consult your dreams.
Karl Kraus
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I have drawn from the well of language many a thought which I do not have and which I could not put into words.
Karl Kraus
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The tyranny of necessity grants its slaves three kinds of freedom: opinion free from intellect, entertainment free from art, and orgies free from love.
Karl Kraus
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One of the most widespread diseases is diagnosis.
Karl Kraus
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A great deal of learning can be packed into an empty head.
Karl Kraus