KARL KRAUS

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

Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match.

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

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

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.

Children play soldier. That makes sense. But why do soldiers play children?

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

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

Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don't come into the world.

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

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

It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.

Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.

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

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

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

Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear.

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

I am already so popular that anyone who vilifies me becomes more popular than I am.

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

Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.

Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower.

An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.

Jealousy is a dog's bark which attracts thieves.