Karl Kraus

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.

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

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

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.'

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

Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.

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

The trouble with Germans is not that they fire shells, but that they engrave them with quotations from Kant.

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.

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

It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.

Sexuality poorly repressed unsettles some families; well repressed, it unsettles the whole world.

The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span.

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

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

You'd be surprised how hard it can often be to translate an action into an idea.

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

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

Journalists write because they have nothing to say, and have something to say because they write.

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

If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies.

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

I and life: The case was settled chivalrously. The opponents parted without having made up.

A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.

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