Top 200 Karl Kraus Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “Morality is a burglar’s tool whose merit lies in never being left behind at the scene of the crime.”

— Karl Kraus

102. “To me all men are equal: there are jackasses everywhere, and I have the same contempt for them all.”

— Karl Kraus

103. “Sound opinions are valueless. What matters is who holds them.”

— Karl Kraus

104. “Progress makes purses out of human skin.”

— Karl Kraus

105. “Many women would like to dream with men without sleeping with them. Someone should point out to them that this is utterly impossible.”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

107. “Let language be the divining rod that finds the sources of thought.”

— Karl Kraus

108. “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.”

— Karl Kraus

109. “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

110. “The esthete stands in the same relation to beauty as the pornographer stands to love, and the politician stands to life.”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

112. “Language is the only chimera whose illusory power is endless, the inexhaustibility which keeps life from being impoverished. Let men learn to serve language.”

— Karl Kraus

113. “There are people who can never forgive a beggar for their not having given him anything.”

— Karl Kraus

114. “The unattractive thing about chauvinism is not so much the aversion to other nations as the love of one’s own.”

— Karl Kraus

115. “The superman is a premature ideal, one that presupposes man.”

— Karl Kraus

116. “Religion, morality, and patriotism are feelings that are manifested only when they are outraged.”

— Karl Kraus

117. “I saw a poet chase a butterfly in a meadow. He put his net on a bench where a boy sat reading a book. It’s a misfortune that it is usually the other way round.”

— Karl Kraus

118. “Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy.”

— Karl Kraus

119. “You don’t even live once.”

— Karl Kraus

120. “It so often happened to me that someone who shared my opinion kept the larger share for himself that I am now forewarned and offer people only ideas.”

— Karl Kraus

121. “One must read all writers twice – the good as well as the bad. The one kind will be recognized; the other, unmasked.”

— Karl Kraus

122. “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.”

— Karl Kraus

123. “The extraordinary ability of a woman to forget is not the same as the talent of a lady not to be able to remember.”

— Karl Kraus

124. “How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.”

— Karl Kraus

125. “No ideas and the ability to express them – that’s a journalist.”

— Karl Kraus

126. “Wo nehm ich nur all die Zeit her, so viel nicht zu lesen?”

— Karl Kraus

127. “Humanity and bestiality: when will the former finally be uttered with the flavor of hate and the latter with the flavor of love? Does a lion tear his fellow lion to pieces?”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

129. “If something is stolen from you, don’t go to the police. They’re not interested. Don’t go to a psychologist either, because he’s interested in only one thing: that it was really you who did the stealing.”

— Karl Kraus

130. “Insights into erotic life belong to art, not education. But sometimes these have to be spelled out for the illiterates. And it ismainly a matter of convincing the illiterates, for they are the ones who write the penal code.”

— Karl Kraus

131. “I trim my opponents to fit my arrows.”

— Karl Kraus

132. “My request that my writing be read twice has aroused great indignation. Unjustly so. After all, I do not ask that they be read once.”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

134. “He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent.”

— Karl Kraus

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

— Karl Kraus

136. “Since the law prohibits the keeping of wild animals and I get no enjoyment from pets, I prefer to remain unmarried.”

— Karl Kraus

137. “The most incomprehensible talk comes from people who have no other use for language than to make themselves understood.”

— Karl Kraus

138. “On the stage one must not confuse the nature of a personality with the naturalness of a person.”

— Karl Kraus

139. “The triumph of morality: A thief who has broken into a bedroom claims his sense of shame had been outraged, and by threatening theoccupants with exposure of an immoral act he blackmails them into not bringing charges for burglary.”

— Karl Kraus

140. “Many talents preserve their precociousness right into old age.”

— Karl Kraus

141. “Artists have a right to be modest and a duty to be vain.”

— Karl Kraus

142. “If you wish to form a clear judgment on your friends, consult your dreams.”

— Karl Kraus

143. “A historian is often only a journalist facing backwards.”

— Karl Kraus

144. “Most critics write critiques which are by the authors they write critiques about. That would not be so bad, but then most authorswrite works which are by the critics who write critiques about them.”

— Karl Kraus

145. “When a culture feels that its end has come, it sends for a priest.”

— Karl Kraus

146. “Nothing is more horrible than my self in the mirror of hysteria. Nothing is more vulgar than my style in the hands of another. Toimitate me is to punish me.”

— Karl Kraus

147. “Solitude would be ideal if you could pick the people to avoid.”

— Karl Kraus

148. “I can say with pride that I have spent days and nights not reading anything, and that with unflagging energy I use every moment toacquire gradually an encyclopedic lack of education.”

— Karl Kraus

149. “Keep your passions in check, but beware of giving your reason free rein.”

— Karl Kraus

150. “What are all the orgies of Bacchus when compared to the intoxication of someone who completely surrenders to continence!”

— Karl Kraus