Karl Kraus

My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious.

Karl Kraus (1874-04-28 – 1936-06-12) was an Austrian journalist, satirist, essayist, aphorist, playwright and poet.

Sourced

• There are women who are not beautiful but only look that way.
  • Sprüche und Widersprüche (Dicta and Contradictions) (1909); as translated by Richard Hanser

• What is the Ninth Symphony compared to a Tin Pan Alley hit played on a hurdy-gurdy and a memory?
  • Sprüche und Widersprüche (Dicta and Contradictions)

• Love and art do not embrace what is beautiful but what is made beautiful by this embrace.
  • Beim Wort genommen (1955); as translated by by Harry Zohn

• Die Literatur von heute sind Rezepte, die die Kranken schreiben.
  • Today’s literature is prescriptions written by patients.
    • Karl Kraus, Nachts, 2, „Kunst”

• Meine Sprache ist die Allerweltshure, die ich zur Jungfrau mache.
  • My language is the common prostitute that I turn into a virgin.
    • Karl Kraus, Pro Domo et Mundo, 7, „Pro Domo et Mundo”

• Der Fortschritt feiert Pyrrhussiege über die Natur.
  • Progress celebrates Pyrrhic victories over nature.
    • Karl Kraus, Pro Domo et Mundo, 7, „Pro Domo et Mundo”

• Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence.
  • Karl Kraus, “In these great times,” Harry Zohn, trans., In These Great Times (Montreal: 1976), pp. 73-74

• Progress … has subordinated the purpose of life to the means of subsistence and turned us into the nuts and bolts for our tools.
  • “In these great times,” Harry Zohn, trans., In These Great Times (Montreal: 1976), pp. 73-74

• The tyranny of necessity grants its slaves three kinds of freedom: opinion free from intellect, entertainment free from art, and orgies free from love.
  • “In these great times,” Harry Zohn, trans., In These Great Times (Montreal: 1976), p. 74

• 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.
  • “In these great times,” Harry Zohn, trans., In These Great Times (Montreal: 1976), p. 74

• The aesthete stands in the same relation to beauty as the pornographer stands to love.
  • Die Fackel #406, October 5, 1915, p. 138

Die Fackel

Quotations from Die Fackel as translated in Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus’s Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry (1976) by Thomas Stephen Szasz

• An aphorism can never be the whole truth; it is either a half-truth or a truth-and-a-half.
  • Die Fackel no. 270/71 (1909-01-19)

• Sexuality poorly repressed unsettles some families; well repressed, it unsettles the whole world.
  • Die Fackel no. 315/16 (1911-01-26)

• The esthete stands in the same relation to beauty as the pornographer stands to love, and the politician stands to life.
  • Die Fackel no. 406/12 (1915-10-05)

• My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious.
  • Die Fackel no. 445/53 (18 January 1917)

• 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.
  • Die Fackel no. 46 (9 October 1917)

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)

Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths: Selected Aphorisms (1990) as translated by Harry Zohn

• Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.

• I hear noises which others don't hear and which disturb for me the music of the spheres, which others don't hear either.

• Many share my views with me. But I don't share them with them.

• 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.

• Moral responsibility is what is lacking in a man when he demands it of a woman.

External links

• The Life and Work of Karl Kraus