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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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Karl Kraus
Age: 62 †
Born: 1874
Born: March 28
Died: 1936
Died: June 12
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Playwright
Poet
Translator
Writer
Jicin
Literature
Means
Doe
Better
Mean
Express

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A woman occasionally is quite a serviceable substitute for masturbation.
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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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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.
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Speech is the mother, not the handmaid, of thought.
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A bibliophile has approximately the same relationship to literature as a philatelist to geography.
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What the teachers digest, the pupils eat.
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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.
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I would have stage-fright if I had to speak with every one of the people before whom I speak.
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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News reports stand up as people, and people wither into editorials. Clichés walk around on two legs while men are having theirs shot off.
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 art of an actress is sublimated sexuality. But off the stage the fire must be able to reconvert the steam into body.
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Many talents preserve their precociousness right into old age.
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If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies.
Karl Kraus
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A historian is not always a prophet facing backwards, but a journalist is always someone who afterwards knew everything beforehand.
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My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
Karl Kraus
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The little stations are very proud because the expresses have to pass them by.
Karl Kraus
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Keep your passions in check, but beware of giving your reason free rein.
Karl Kraus
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An illusion of depth often occurs if a blockhead is a muddlehead at the same time
Karl Kraus
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A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.
Karl Kraus