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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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To have no ideas and being able to express them is the essence of journalism.
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The little stations are very proud because the expresses have to pass them by.
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My respect for the inconsiderable is assuming gigantic dimensions.
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In Berlin, things are serious but not hopeless. In Vienna, they are hopeless but not serious.
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Where do I find the time for not reading so many books?
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A child learns to discard his ideals, whereas a grown-up never wears out his short pants.
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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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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.
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Keep your passions in check, but beware of giving your reason free rein.
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I trim my opponents to fit my arrows.
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Blushing, palpitations, a bad conscience--this is what you get if you haven't sinned.
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Children play soldier. That makes sense. But why do soldiers play children?
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I and life: The case was settled chivalrously. The opponents parted without having made up.
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To me all men are equal: there are jackasses everywhere, and I have the same contempt for them all.
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Psychology is as useless as directions for using poison.
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Contemporaries live from second hand to mouth.
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A bibliophile has approximately the same relationship to literature as a philatelist to geography.
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Truth is a clumsy servant that breaks the dishes while washing them.
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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.
Karl Kraus
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My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
Karl Kraus