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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

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An illusion of depth often occurs if a blockhead is a muddlehead at the same time
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Prussia: freedom of movement with a muzzle. Austria: an isolation cell in which screaming is allowed.
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There are two kinds of writers, those who are and those who aren't. With the first, content and form belong together like soul and body with the second, they match each other like body and clothes.
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Family life is an encroachment on private life.
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To have no ideas and being able to express them is the essence of journalism.
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That an author takes a bow is not humility but presumption. What does the paleface want on the stage afterwards? But before the performance he had even less business there--and paying him royalties is equivalent to cheating the actors.
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A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.
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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.
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The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt.
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On the stage one must not confuse the nature of a personality with the naturalness of a person.
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Not greeting people isn't enough. One also doesn't greet people one doesn't know.
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Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower.
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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.
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It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.
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The little stations are very proud because the expresses have to pass them by.
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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.
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In Berlin, things are serious but not hopeless. In Vienna, they are hopeless but not serious.
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One cannot dictate an aphorism to a typist. It would take too long.
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There are women who are not beautiful but only look that way.
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Immortality is the only thing which doesn't tolerate being postponed.
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