Quote

A white lie is always pardonable. But he who tells the truth without compulsion merits no leniency.

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
Tells
Lying
White
Truth
Pardonable
Without
Leniency
Always
Merits
Compulsion
Merit

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Prussia: freedom of movement with a muzzle. Austria: an isolation cell in which screaming is allowed.
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Morality is the tendency to pour out the baby with the bathwater.
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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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On the stage one must not confuse the nature of a personality with the naturalness of a person.
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Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match.
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Keep your passions in check, but beware of giving your reason free rein.
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A healthy man is content with a woman. An erotic man is content with a stocking to get to a woman. A sick man is content with thestocking.
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Social reform is the desperate decision to remove corns from a person suffering from cancer.
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An artist should make concessions to the listener. That is why Bruckner dedicated one of his symphonies to the Good Lord.
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Sexual enlightenment is that hardhearted process which for hygienic reasons forbids young people to satisfy their curiosity themselves.
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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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Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots.
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Religion, morality, and patriotism are feelings that are manifested only when they are outraged.
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Most people only do what they are asked to do success comes to those who do a little more.
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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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