Karl Kraus Quotes
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Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.
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The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back.
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It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.
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I am already so popular that anyone who vilifies me becomes more popular than I am.
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Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.
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Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don't come into the world.
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No ideas and the ability to express them - that's a journalist.
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Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.
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Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.
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A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.
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An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.
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Education is what most receive, many pass on, and few possess.
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Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match.
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Matrimony is the union of meanness and martyrdom.
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A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.
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Christian morality prefers remorse to precede lust, and then lust not to follow.
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Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy.
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The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span.
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If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies.
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How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.
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Journalists write because they have nothing to say, and have something to say because they write.
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I don't like to meddle in my private affairs.
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Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.
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Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life.