"There are writers who can express in as little as twenty pages what I occasionally need as many as two for."
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Quote collection
Karl Kraus quotes (page 8 of 14)
263 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Life is an effort that deserves a better cause."
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"I knew a man who carried his education in his vest pocket because there was more room there than in his head."
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"The most incomprehensible talk comes from people who have no other use for language than to make themselves understood."
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"Many women would like to dream with men without sleeping with them. Someone should point out to them that this is utterly impossible."
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"A bibliophile has approximately the same relationship to literature as a philatelist to geography."
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"Sound opinions are valueless. What matters is who holds them."
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"Social reform is the desperate decision to remove corns from a person suffering from cancer."
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"Speech is the mother, not the handmaid, of thought."
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"Satires which the censor can understand are justly forbidden"
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"Not greeting people isn't enough. One also doesn't greet people one doesn't know."
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"They judge lest they be judged."
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"How powerful social mores are! Only a spider's web lies across the volcano, yet it refrains from erupting."
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"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."
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"Morality is a burglar's tool whose merit lies in never being left behind at the scene of the crime."
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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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"Most people only do what they are asked to do; success comes to those who do a little more."
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"I have often been asked to be fair and view a matter from all sides. I did so, hoping that something might improve if I viewed allsides of it. But the result was the same. So I went back to viewing things only from one side, which saves me a lot of work and disappointment. For it is comforting to regard something as bad and to be able to use one's prejudice as an excuse."
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"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."
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"What the teachers digest, the pupils eat."
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