Six quotes by Karl Kraus
Karl Kraus was born into the wealthy family of Jacob Kraus, a papermaker, and his wife Ernestine, née Kantor, in Jičín, Kingdom of Bohemia, Austria-Hungary (now the Czech Republic). The family moved to Vienna in 1877. Karl Kraus was a subject of controversy throughout his lifetime. Marcel Reich-Ranicki called him 'vain, self-righteous and self-important'. Kraus's followers saw in him an infallible authority who would do anything to help those he supported. Kraus considered posterity his ultimate audience.
An aphorism can never be the whole truth; it is either a half-truth or a truth-and-a-half.
Der Aphorismus deckt sich nie mit der Wahrheit; er ist entweder eine halbe Wahrheit oder anderthalb.
[+] It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.
[+] Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time writing essays.
Einer, der Aphorismen schreiben kann, sollte sich nicht in Aufsätzen zersplittern.
[+] The secret of the demagogue is to appear as dumb as his audience so that these people can believe themselves as smart as he.
[+] There are women who are not beautiful but only look that way.
[+] War is first the hope that one will be better off, then the expectation that the other will be worse off, then the satisfaction that the other is not better off either, and then the surprise that both are worse off.
Krieg ist zuerst die Hoffnung, daß es einem besser gehen wird, hierauf die Erwartung, daß es dem anderen schlechter gehen wird, dann die Genugtuung, daß es dem anderen auch nicht besser geht, und hernach die Überraschung, daß es beiden schlechter geht.
[+]The author info is from Wikipedia, licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
The original picture is by AnonymousUnknown author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons and has been cropped and converted to greyscale.
