Top 200 Karl Kraus Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “When the sun of culture is low, even dwarves will cast long shadows.”

— Karl Kraus

2. “Lord, forgive them, for they know what they do!”

— Karl Kraus

3. “Cosmetics is the science of a woman’s cosmos.”

— Karl Kraus

4. “I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia walk up to a polymath and open him up.”

— Karl Kraus

5. “The streets of Vienna are paved with culture, the streets of other cities with asphalt.”

— Karl Kraus

6. “The development of technology will leave only one problem: the infirmity of human nature.”

— Karl Kraus

7. “The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he.”

— Karl Kraus

8. “Love thy neighbor as thyself. Because each of us is his own neighbor.”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

10. “In Berlin, things are serious but not hopeless. In Vienna, they are hopeless but not serious.”

— Karl Kraus

11. “Moral responsibility is what is lacking in a man when he demands it of a woman.”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

15. “Parliamentarianism means putting political prostitution in barracks.”

— Karl Kraus

16. “What the teachers digest, the pupils eat.”

— Karl Kraus

17. “Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.”

— Karl Kraus

18. “The tyranny of necessity grants its slaves three kinds of freedom: opinion free from intellect, entertainment free from art, and orgies free from love.”

— Karl Kraus

19. “I like to hold a monologue with women. But a dialogue with myself is more stimulating.”

— Karl Kraus

20. “Nationalism is the love which ties me to the blockheads of my country, to the insultors of my way of life, and to the desecrators of my language.”

— Karl Kraus

21. “Anesthesia: wounds without pain. Neurasthenia: pain without wounds.”

— Karl Kraus

22. “Family life is an encroachment on private life.”

— Karl Kraus

23. “Journalist: a person without any ideas but with an ability to express them; a writer whose skill is improved by a deadline: the more time he has, the worse he writes.”

— Karl Kraus

24. “War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.”

— Karl Kraus

25. “Psychology is as useless as directions for using poison.”

— Karl Kraus

26. “A man’s eroticism is a woman’s sexuality.”

— Karl Kraus

27. “To be perfect, one lacks only a defect.”

— Karl Kraus

28. “Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone’s slave.”

— Karl Kraus

29. “The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back.”

— Karl Kraus

30. “Psychology is a bus that accompanies an airplane.”

— Karl Kraus

31. “Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.”

— Karl Kraus

32. “There is no more unfortunate creature under the sun than a fetishist who yearns for a woman’s shoe and has to settle for the whole woman.”

— Karl Kraus

33. “Social reform is the desperate decision to remove corns from a person suffering from cancer.”

— Karl Kraus

34. “One of the most widespread diseases is diagnosis.”

— Karl Kraus

35. “Ingratitude is often disproportionate to the benefaction received.”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

37. “How is the world ruled and how do wars start? Diplomats tell lies to journalists and then believe what they read.”

— Karl Kraus

38. “He who sleeps half a day has won half a life.”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

41. “Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower.”

— Karl Kraus

42. “Technology is a servant who makes so much noise cleaning up in the next room that his master cannot make music.”

— Karl Kraus

43. “Where do I find the time for not reading so many books?”

— Karl Kraus

44. “How unreliable is the woman caught being faithful! Today she is faithful to you, tomorrow to another.”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

46. “Life is an effort that deserves a better cause.”

— Karl Kraus

47. “Truth is a clumsy servant that breaks the dishes while washing them.”

— Karl Kraus

48. “Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.”

— Karl Kraus

49. “To be sure, the dog is loyal. But why, on that account, should we take him as an example? He is loyal to man, not to other dogs.”

— Karl Kraus

50. “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.”

— Karl Kraus