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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.
(Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian satirist. repr. In Thomas Szasz, Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry, ch. 8 (1976). Die Fackel (Vienna, Oct. 9, 1917), no. 462/71.)
Read more quotations about / on: lost, war
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2
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Anesthesia: wounds without pain. Neurasthenia: pain without wounds.
(Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian writer. Trans. by Harry Zohn, originally published in Beim Wort genommen (1955). Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths, University of Chicago Press (1990).)
Read more quotations about / on: pain
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3
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Progress, under whose feet the grass mourns and the forest turns into paper from which newspaper plants grow, has subordinated the purpose of life to the means of subsistence and turned us into the nuts and bolts for our tools.
(Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian satirist. speech, November 19, 1914, Vienna, repr. In In These Great Times: A Karl Kraus Reader, ed. Harry Zohn (1976). "In These Great Times," Die Fackel (Vienna, December 1914).)
Read more quotations about / on: forest, life
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4
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An aphorism can never be the whole truth; it is either a half-truth or a truth-and-a-half.
(Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian satirist. repr. In Thomas Szasz, Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry, ch. 8 (1976). Die Fackel, no. 270/71 (Vienna, January 19, 1909).)
Read more quotations about / on: truth
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5
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One can translate an editorial but not a poem. For one can go across the border naked but not without one's skin; for, unlike clothes, one cannot get a new skin.
(Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian writer. Trans. by Harry Zohn, originally published in Beim Wort genommen (1955). Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths, University of Chicago Press (1990).)
Read more quotations about / on: poem
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6
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The heroes of obtrusiveness, people with whom no soldier would lie down in the trenches, though he has to submit to being interviewed by them, break into recently abandoned royal castles so that they can report, "We got there first!" It would be far less shameful to be paid for committing atrocities than for fabricating them.
(Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian satirist. speech, Nov. 19, 1914, in Vienna , repr. In In These Great Times: A Karl Kraus Reader, ed. Harry Zohn (1976). "In These Great Times," Die Fackel (Vienna, Dec. 1914).)
Read more quotations about / on: soldier, people
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7
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The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse than they are.
(Karl Kraus (1874-1936), Austrian satirist. repr. In Thomas Szasz, Anti-Freud: Karl Kraus's Criticism of Psychoanalysis and Psychiatry, ch. 8 (1976). Die Fackel, no. 277/78 (Vienna, March 31, 1909).)
Read more quotations about / on: people
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