An idea’s birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself. – Karl Kraus
I and life: The case was settled chivalrously. The opponents parted without having made up. – Karl Kraus
The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test. – Karl Kraus
Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don’t come into the world. – Karl Kraus
Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis. – Karl Kraus
Journalists write because they have nothing to say, and have something to say because they write. – Karl Kraus
How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print. – Karl Kraus
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. – Karl Kraus
It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new. – Karl Kraus
There is no more unfortunate creature under the sun than a fetishist who yearns for a woman’s shoe and has to settle for the whole woman. – Karl Kraus
He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent. – Karl Kraus
There are people who can never forgive a beggar for their not having given him anything. – Karl Kraus
The trouble with Germans is not that they fire shells, but that they engrave them with quotations from Kant. – Karl Kraus
Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work. – Karl Kraus
