Best 239 quotes of Karl Kraus on MyQuotes

A bibliophile has approximately the same relationship to literature as a philatelist to geography.

A child learns to discard his ideals, whereas a grown-up never wears out his short pants.

A comprehensive education is a well-stocked pharmacy: but we have no assurance that potassium cyanide will not be administered fora head cold.

Adults who still derive childlike pleasure from hanging gifts of a ready-made education on the Christmas tree of a child waiting outside the door to life do not realize how unreceptive they are making the children to everything that constitutes the true surprise of life.

A father's pride, laid on thick, has always made me wish that the fellow had at least experienced some pain during procreation.

A fine world in which man reproaches woman with fulfilling his heart's desire!

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.

A great deal of learning can be packed into an empty head.

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.

A historian is not always a prophet facing backwards, but a journalist is always someone who afterwards knew everything beforehand.

A historian is often only a journalist facing backwards.

A journalist is stimulated by a deadline. He writes worse when he has time

A man's jealousy is a social institution; a woman's prostitution is an instinct.

An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.

An artist should make concessions to the listener. That is why Bruckner dedicated one of his symphonies to the Good Lord.

Anesthesia: wounds without pain. Neurasthenia: pain without wounds.

An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.

An illusion of depth often occurs if a blockhead is a muddlehead at the same time

A philistine is habitually bored and looks for things that won't bore him. An artist finds things boring, but is never bored.

A pun, though despicable in itself, can be the noblest vehicle of an artistic intention by serving as the abbreviation of a wittyview. It can be a social criticism in the form of an epigram.

Art is something that is so perfectly clear that no one comprehends it.

Artists have a right to be modest and a duty to be vain.

A school without grades must have been concocted by someone who was drunk on non-alcoholic wine.

Ask your neighbor only about things you know better yourself. Then his advice could prove valuable.

A snob is unreliable. The work he praises might just be good.

A weak man has doubts before a decision; a strong man has them afterwards.

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

A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.

A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.

Barbershop conversations are irrefutable proof that heads exist for the sake of hair.

Blushing, palpitations, a bad conscience--this is what you get if you haven't sinned.

Chastity always takes its toll. In some it produces pimples; in others, sex laws.

Children play soldier. That makes sense. But why do soldiers play children?

Children today laugh at fathers who tell them about dragons. It is necessary to make fear a required subject; otherwise children will never learn it.

Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.

Christian morality prefers remorse to precede lust, and then lust not to follow.

Contemporaries live from second hand to mouth.

Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.

Cosmetics is the science of a woman's cosmos.

Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence.

Curses on the law! Most of my fellow citizens are the sorry consequences of uncommitted abortions.

Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work.

Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.

Diplomacy is a game of chess in which the nations are checkmated.

Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life.

Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots.

Education is what most receive, many pass on, and few possess.

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

Family life is an encroachment on private life.

Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram.