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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.

-Karl Kraus

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Let My Style Capture

Karl Kraus

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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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Mankind Became Hysterical In The Middle Ages Because It Poorly Repressed The Sexual Impressions Of Its Greek Boyhood.

So-called Psychoanalysis Is The Occupation Of Lustful Rationalists Who Trace Everything In The World To Sexual Causes--with The Exception Of Their Occupation.

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.

Ask Your Neighbor Only About Things You Know Better Yourself. Then His Advice Could Prove Valuable.

Better Yourself

It Is Regarded As Normal To Consecrate Virginity In General And To Lust For Its Destruction In Particular.

In A Well-run Mental Household There Ought To Be A Thorough Cleaning At The Threshold Of Consciousness A Few Times A Year.

Feminine Passion Is To Masculine As An Epic Is To An Epigram.

Masculine And Feminine

A Father's Pride, Laid On Thick, Has Always Made Me Wish That The Fellow Had At Least Experienced Some Pain During Procreation.

The Little Stations Are Very Proud Because The Expresses Have To Pass Them By.

Heinrich Heine So Loosened The Corsets Of The German Language That Today Every Little Salesman Can Fondle Her Breasts.

German Language

The Esthete Stands In The Same Relation To Beauty As The Pornographer Stands To Love, And The Politician Stands To Life.

I Have Decided Many A Stylistic Problem First By My Head, Then By Heads Or Tails.

The Trouble With Germans Is Not That They Fire Shells, But That They Engrave Them With Quotations From Kant.

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.

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.

Someone Who Can Write Aphorisms Should Not Fritter Away His Time In Essays.

A Great Deal Of Learning Can Be Packed Into An Empty Head.

Since The Law Prohibits The Keeping Of Wild Animals And I Get No Enjoyment From Pets, I Prefer To Remain Unmarried.

Progress Celebrates Victories Over Nature. Progress Makes Purses Out Of Human Skin. When People Were Traveling In Mail Coaches, The World Got Ahead Better Than It Does Now That Salesmen Fly Through The Air. What Good Is Speed If The Brain Has Oozed Out On The Way? How Will The Heirs Of This Age Be Taught The Most Basic Motions That Are Necessary To Activate The Most Complicated Machines? Nature Can Rely On Progress; It Will Avenge It For The Outrage It Has Perpetrated On It.

Psychoanalysis: A Rabbit That Was Swallowed By A Boa Constrictor Just Wanted To See What It Was Like In There.

Blushing, Palpitations, A Bad Conscience--this Is What You Get If You Haven't Sinned.

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?

What Are All The Orgies Of Bacchus When Compared To The Intoxication Of Someone Who Completely Surrenders To Continence!

In Berlin, Things Are Serious But Not Hopeless. In Vienna, They Are Hopeless But Not Serious.

To Write A Novel May Be Pure Pleasure. To Live A Novel Presents Certain Difficulties. As For Reading A Novel, I Do My Best To Get Out Of It.

I Am Not For Women But Against Men.

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.

The Development Of Technology Will Leave Only One Problem: The Infirmity Of Human Nature.

Religion, Morality, And Patriotism Are Feelings That Are Manifested Only When They Are Outraged.

A Man's Eroticism Is A Woman's Sexuality.

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.

Morality Is The Tendency To Pour Out The Baby With The Bathwater.

I Am Already So Popular That Anyone Who Vilifies Me Becomes More Popular Than I Am.

Culture Is The Tacit Agreement To Let The Means Of Subsistence Disappear Behind The Purpose Of Existence.

It Is A Mystery To Me How A Theologian Can Be Praised For Having Brought Himself To Disbelieve Dogmas. I've Always Thought That Those Who Have Brought Themselves To Believe In Dogmas Merit The True Recognition Owing A Heroic Deed.

A Fine World In Which Man Reproaches Woman With Fulfilling His Heart's Desire!

I Don't Like To Meddle In My Private Affairs.

Barbershop Conversations Are Irrefutable Proof That Heads Exist For The Sake Of Hair.

The Truth Is That The Newspaper Is Not A Place For Information To Be Given, Rather It Is Just Hollow Content, Or More Than That, A Provoker Of Content. If It Prints Lies About Atrocities, Real Atrocities Are The Result.

A Historian Is Often Only A Journalist Facing Backwards.

In A Hollow Head There Is Much Room For Knowledge.

What The Teachers Digest, The Pupils Eat.

What Do People Have Against Convicts? Is Living Together In The Pen Of Freedom, Where Young People Engage In Mutual Psychology, Any More Beautiful?

Technology Is A Servant Who Makes So Much Noise Cleaning Up In The Next Room That His Master Cannot Make Music.

Not Greeting People Isn't Enough. One Also Doesn't Greet People One Doesn't Know.

Art Is Something That Is So Perfectly Clear That No One Comprehends It.

Immortality Is The Only Thing Which Doesn't Tolerate Being Postponed.

The Streets Of Vienna Are Paved With Culture, The Streets Of Other Cities With Asphalt.

Sex Education Is Legitimate In That Girls Cannot Be Taught Soon Enough How Children Don't Come Into The World.

You'd Be Surprised How Hard It Can Often Be To Translate An Action Into An Idea.

Nowadays The Thief Cannot Be Distinguished From His Victim. Neither Has Any Valuable Objects On Him.

Many Share My Views With Me. But I Don't Share Them With Them.

There Is A Cultural Taste Which Tries Very Hard To Get Rid Of The Lice In A Fur Coat. There Is Another Which Tolerates The Lice And Thinks The Coat Can Be Worn With Them In It. And Finally There Is A Taste Which Regards The Lice As The Most Important Thing About The Coat And Consequently Places The Coat At The Lice's Disposal.

An Artist Should Make Concessions To The Listener. That Is Why Bruckner Dedicated One Of His Symphonies To The Good Lord.

The Real End Of The World Is The Destruction Of The Spirit; The Other Kind Depends On The Insignificant Attempt To See Whether After Such A Destruction The World Can Go On.

In Case Of Doubt, Decide In Favor Of What Is Correct.

One's Need For Loneliness Is Not Satisfied If One Sits At A Table Alone. There Must Be Empty Chairs As Well.

Psychoanalysis Is The Mental Illness It Purports To Cure

War Is, At First, The Hope That One Will Be Better Off; Next, The Expectation That The Other Fellow Will Be Worse Off; Then, The Satisfaction That He Isn't Any Better Off; And, Finally, The Surprise At Everyone's Being Worse Off.

The World Has Become Uglier Since It Began To Look Into A Mirror Every Day; So Let Us Settle For The Mirror Image And Do Without An Inspection Of The Original.

To Be Human Is Erroneous.

An Idea's Birth Is Legitimate If One Has The Feeling That One Is Catching Oneself Plagiarizing Oneself.

A Man's Jealousy Is A Social Institution; A Woman's Prostitution Is An Instinct.

A Good Stylist Should Have Narcissistic Enjoyment As He Works. He Must Be Able To Objectivize His Work To Such An Extent That He Catches Himself Feeling Envious And Has To Jog His Memory To Find That He Is Himself The Creator. In Short, He Must Display That Highest Degree Of Objectivity Which The World Calls Vanity.

Newspapers Have Roughly The Same Relationship To Life As Fortune-tellers To Metaphysics.

How Unreliable Is The Woman Caught Being Faithful! Today She Is Faithful To You, Tomorrow To Another.

I And Life: The Case Was Settled Chivalrously. The Opponents Parted Without Having Made Up.

Many Talents Preserve Their Precociousness Right Into Old Age.

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.

One Of The Most Widespread Diseases Is Diagnosis.

Squeeze Human Nature Into The Straitjacket Of Criminal Justice And Crime Will Appear.

Why Didn't Eternity Have This Deformed Age Aborted ? Its Birthmark Is The Stamp Of A Newspaper, Its Medium Is Printer's Ink, And In Its Veins Flows Ink.

How Powerful Social Mores Are! Only A Spider's Web Lies Across The Volcano, Yet It Refrains From Erupting.

He Who Sleeps Half A Day Has Won Half A Life.

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.

Solitude Would Be Ideal If You Could Pick The People To Avoid.

The Agitator Seizes The Word. The Artist Is Seized By It.

I Master Only The Language Of Others. Mine Does With Me What It Wants.

Psychoanalysis Is That Mental Illness For Which It Regards Itself As Therapy.

Ideas Are Transplanted By Splitting, Thoughts By Sprouting.

Psychoanalysts Are Father Confessors Who Like To Listen To The Sins Of The Father As Well.

My Unconscious Knows More About The Consciousness Of The Psychologist Than His Consciousness Knows About My Unconscious.

If By Day Art Is In The Service Of Business, The Evenings Are Devoted To The Businessman's Enjoyment Of It. That Is Asking A Lot Of Art, But Art And The Businessman Make It Work.

It Is Uplifting To Lose One?s Faith In A Reality Which Looks The Way It Is Described In A Newspaper.

The Superman Is A Premature Ideal, One That Presupposes Man.

How Is The World Ruled And Led To War? Diplomats Lie To Journalists And Believe These Lies When They See Them In Print.

My Respect For The Inconsiderable Is Assuming Gigantic Dimensions.

What Is A Historian? Someone Who Doesn't Write Well Enough To Work On A Daily.

Corruption Is Worse Than Prostitution. The Latter Might Endanger The Morals Of An Individual, The Former Invariably Endangers The Morals Of The Entire Country.

Moral Corruption

The Devil Is An Optimist If He Thinks He Can Make People Worse Than They Are.

My Language Is The Common Prostitute That I Turn Into A Virgin.

A Poem Is Good Until One Knows By Whom It Is.

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.

Through My Satire I Make Little People So Big That Afterwards They Are Worthy Objects Of My Satire And No One Can Reproach Me Any Longer.

I Had A Terrible Vision: I Saw An Encyclopedia Walk Up To A Polymath And Open Him Up.

Intercourse With A Woman Is Sometimes A Satisfactory Substitute For Masturbation. But It Takes A Lot Of Imagination To Make It Work.

The Most Incomprehensible Talk Comes From People Who Have No Other Use For Language Than To Make Themselves Understood.

Most People Only Do What They Are Asked To Do; Success Comes To Those Who Do A Little More.

I Have Drawn From The Well Of Language Many A Thought Which I Do Not Have And Which I Could Not Put Into Words.

Sound Opinions Are Valueless. What Matters Is Who Holds Them.

Curses On The Law! Most Of My Fellow Citizens Are The Sorry Consequences Of Uncommitted Abortions.

Who Is Going To Cast Out An Error To Which He Has Given Birth And Replace It With An Adopted Truth?

Do Not Learn More Than You Absolutely Need To Get Through Life.

Matrimony Is The Union Of Meanness And Martyrdom.

The Unattractive Thing About Chauvinism Is Not So Much The Aversion To Other Nations As The Love Of One's Own.

Truth Is A Clumsy Servant That Breaks The Dishes While Washing Them.

The Mission Of The Press Is To Spread Culture While Destroying The Attention Span.

Speech Is The Mother, Not The Handmaid, Of Thought.

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.

To Me All Men Are Equal: There Are Jackasses Everywhere, And I Have The Same Contempt For Them All.

Jealousy Is A Dog's Bark Which Attracts Thieves.

Experiences Are Savings Which A Miser Puts Aside. Wisdom Is An Inheritance Which A Wastrel Cannot Exhaust.

The Ultimate Aim Of Psychoanalysis Is To Attribute Art To Mental Weakness, And Then To Trace The Weakness Back To The Point Where, According To Analytic Dogma, It Originated Namely, The Lavatory.

One Cannot Dictate An Aphorism To A Typist. It Would Take Too Long.

A Writer Is Someone Who Can Make A Riddle Out Of An Answer.

I And My Public Understand Each Other Very Well: It Does Not Hear What I Say, And I Don't Say What It Wants To Hear.

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.

Psychology Is A Bus That Accompanies An Airplane.

I Trim My Opponents To Fit My Arrows.

An Illusion Of Depth Often Occurs If A Blockhead Is A Muddlehead At The Same Time

Ingratitude Is Often Disproportionate To The Benefaction Received.

No Ideas And The Ability To Express Them - That's A Journalist.

A Weak Man Has Doubts Before A Decision; A Strong Man Has Them Afterwards.

Children Play Soldier. That Makes Sense. But Why Do Soldiers Play Children?

When A Man Is Treated Like A Beast, He Says, 'after All, I'm Human.' When He Behaves Like A Beast, He Says 'after All, I'm Only Human.

A Snob Is Unreliable. The Work He Praises Might Just Be Good.

Satires Which The Censor Can Understand Are Justly Forbidden

Science Is Spectral Analysis. Art Is Light Synthesis.

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.

Hate Must Make A Man Productive. Otherwise One Might As Well Love.

They Judge Lest They Be Judged.

A White Lie Is Always Pardonable. But He Who Tells The Truth Without Compulsion Merits No Leniency.

A Woman Occasionally Is Quite A Serviceable Substitute For Masturbation.

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.

Democracy Means The Opportunity To Be Everyone's Slave.

Life Is An Effort That Deserves A Better Cause.

Stupidity Gets Up Early; That Is Why Events Are Accustomed To Happening In The Morning.

The Pimp Is The Executive Organ Of Immorality. The Executive Organ Of Morality Is The Blackmailer.

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.

Sorrento, August. For Two Weeks Now I Haven't Heard A German Word Or Understood An Italian One. This Way One Can Manage To Live With People; Everything Goes Like Clockwork And No Irksome Misunderstanding Can Arise.

Cosmetics Is The Science Of A Woman's Cosmos.

Satire That The Censor Understands Is Rightly Censored.

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.

When I Read, It Is Not Acted Literature; But What I Write Is Written Acting.

The Extraordinary Ability Of A Woman To Forget Is Not The Same As The Talent Of A Lady Not To Be Able To Remember.

Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself. Because Each Of Us Is His Own Neighbor.

Love Thy Neighbor

Most People Are Sick. But Only A Few Know That This Is Something They Can Be Proud Of. These Are The Psychoanalysts.

Contemporaries Live From Second Hand To Mouth.

A Comprehensive Education Is A Well-stocked Pharmacy: But We Have No Assurance That Potassium Cyanide Will Not Be Administered Fora Head Cold.

We Are Sacrificing Ourselves For Our Ready-made Goods; We Are Consumers And Live In Such A Way That The Means May Consume The End.

There Is A Shortage Of Clerks. Everyone Is Going Into Journalism.

Language Is The Mother Of Thought, Not Its Handmaiden.

Medicine: "your Money And Your Life!

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.

To Be Perfect, One Lacks Only A Defect.

Since The Day Man First Tried To Conquer Space, The Earth Has Been Mobilizing.

Morality Is A Venereal Disease. Its Primary Stage Is Called Virtue; Its Secondary Stage, Boredom; Its Tertiary Stage, Syphilis.

Virginity Is The Ideal Of Those Who Want To Deflower.

If Children Had Been Told That They Could Not Blow Their Noses, This Alone Would Make Adults Blush.

News Reports Stand Up As People, And People Wither Into Editorials. Clichés Walk Around On Two Legs While Men Are Having Theirs Shot Off.

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.

I Like To Hold A Monologue With Women. But A Dialogue With Myself Is More Stimulating.

The Discovery Of The North Pole Is One Of Those Realities Which Could Not Be Avoided. It Is The Wages Which Human Perseverance Pays Itself When It Thinks That Something Is Taking Too Long. The World Needed A Discoverer Of The North Pole, And In All Areas Of Social Activity, Merit Was Less Important Here Than Opportunity.

Sexuality Poorly Repressed Unsettles Some Families; Well Repressed, It Unsettles The Whole World.

"a Cigar," Said The Altruist, "a Cigar, My Good Man, I Cannot Give You. But Any Time You Need A Light, Just Come Around; Mine Is Always Lit."

I Have To Do This, As Long As It Is At All Possible; For If Those Who Are Obliged To Look After Commas Had Always Made Sure They Were In The Right Place, Then Shanghai Would Not Be Burning.

One Must Read All Writers Twice--the Good As Well As The Bad. The One Kind Will Be Recognized; The Other, Unmasked.

The Psychoanalysts Pick Our Dreams As If They Were Our Pockets.

The Art Of An Actress Is Sublimated Sexuality. But Off The Stage The Fire Must Be Able To Reconvert The Steam Into Body.

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.

The Closer The Look One Takes At A Word, The Greater Distance From Which It Looks Back.

Christianity Has Enriched The Erotic Meal With The Appetizer Of Curiosity And Spoiled It With The Dessert Of Remorse.

When A Culture Feels That Its End Has Come, It Sends For A Priest.

Psychology Is As Useless As Directions For Using Poison.

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.

The Immorality Of Men Triumphs Over The Amorality Of Women.

Keep Your Passions In Check, But Beware Of Giving Your Reason Free Rein.

A School Without Grades Must Have Been Concocted By Someone Who Was Drunk On Non-alcoholic Wine.

He Who Does Without The Praise Of The Crowd Will Not Deny Himself An Opportunity To Be His Own Adherent.

Morality Is A Burglar's Tool Whose Merit Lies In Never Being Left Behind At The Scene Of The Crime.

Love And Art Do Not Embrace What Is Beautiful But What Is Made Beautiful By This Embrace.

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.

The New Psychiatrists Say That Everything And Anything Can Be Traced Back To Sexual Causes. Their Method, For Example, Could Be Explained As The Eroticism Of Father Confessors.

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.

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.

Many Women Would Like To Dream With Men Without Sleeping With Them. Someone Should Point Out To Them That This Is Utterly Impossible.

It Is Better Not To Express What One Means Than To Express What One Does Not Mean.

Language Is The Only Chimera Whose Illusory Power Is Endless, The Inexhaustibility Which Keeps Life From Being Impoverished. Let Men Learn To Serve Language.

Talent Is Often A Defect In Character.

The Real Truths Are Those That Can Be Invented.

You Don't Even Live Once.

Journalists Write Because They Have Nothing To Say, And Have Something To Say Because They Write.

It Is The Mission Of The Press To Disseminate Intellect And At The Same Time Destroy Receptivity To It.

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.

Anesthesia: Wounds Without Pain. Neurasthenia: Pain Without Wounds.

On The Stage One Must Not Confuse The Nature Of A Personality With The Naturalness Of A Person.

Scandal Begins When The Police Put A Stop To It.

Education Is A Crutch With Which The Foolish Attack The Wise To Prove That They Are Not Idiots.

It Is The Style Of Idealism To Console Itself For The Loss Of Something Old With The Ability To Gape At Something New.

The Tyranny Of Necessity Grants Its Slaves Three Kinds Of Freedom: Opinion Free From Intellect, Entertainment Free From Art, And Orgies Free From Love.

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