A man’s jealousy is a social institution; a woman’s prostitution is an instinct.
Originally published in Beim Wort genommen (1955). Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths, University of Chicago Press (1990) [Trans. by Harry Zohn]
Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.
Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.
Morality and Criminal Justice “The Riehl Case” Die Fackel, November, 1906
Nationalism is the love which ties me to the blockheads of my country, to the insultors of my way of life, and to the desecrators of my language.
He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent.
The difference between psychiatrists and other mentally disturbed people is something like the relationship between concave and convex madness.
Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don’t come into the world.
Trans. by Harry Zohn, originally published in Beim Wort genommen (1955). Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half Truths, University of Chicago Press (1990)
One’s need for loneliness is not satisfied if one sits at a table alone. There must be empty chairs as well.
War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off;
next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off;
then, the satisfaction that he isn’t any better off;
and, finally, the surprise at everyone’s being worse off.
A child learns to discard his ideals, whereas a grown-up never wears out his short pants.
A fine world in which man reproaches woman with fulfilling his heart’s desire!
A woman who cannot be ugly is not beautiful.
A writer is someone who can make a riddle out of an answer.
An idea’s birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.
Children play soldier. That makes sense. But why do soldiers play children?
Christian morality prefers remorse to precede lust, and then lust not to follow.
Corruption is worse than prostitution. The latter might endanger the morals of an individual, the former invariably endangers the morals of the entire country.
Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence. Civilization is the subordination of the latter to the former.
Curses on the law! Most of my fellow citizens are the sorry consequences of uncommitted abortions.
Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work.
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone’s slave.
Do not learn more than you absolutely need to get through life.
Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots.
Education is what most receive, many pass on, and few possess.
Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.
Feminine passion is to masculine as an epic is to an epigram.
He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent.
How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.
I am already so popular that anyone who vilifies me becomes more popular than I am.
I and life: The case was settled chivalrously. The opponents parted without having made up.
I and my public understand each other very well: it does not hear what I say, and I don’t say what it wants to hear.
I don’t like to meddle in my private affairs.
I had a terrible vision: I saw an encyclopedia
walk up to a polymath and open him up.
If the reporter has killed our imagination with his truth, he threatens our life with his lies.
Intercourse with a woman is sometimes a satisfactory substitute for masturbation. But it takes a lot of imagination to make it work.
It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.
It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.
Jealousy is a dog’s bark which attracts thieves.
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.
Journalists write because they have nothing to say, and have something to say because they write.
Justice is a whore that won’t let herself be stiffed, and collects the wages of shame even from the poor.
Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.
Matrimony is the union of meanness and martyrdom.
Morality is a venerial disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.
My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious.
No ideas and the ability to express them – that’s a journalist.
Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy.
Scandal begins when the police put a stop to it.
Science is spectral analysis. Art is light synthesis.
Sentimental irony is a dog that bays at the moon while pissing on graves.
Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don’t come into the world.
Sexuality poorly repressed unsettles some families; well repressed, it unsettles the whole world.
Solitude would be ideal if you could pick the people to avoid.
Someone who can write aphorisms should not fritter away his time in essays.
Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear.
Stupidity is an elemental force for which no earthquake is a match.
The closer the look one takes at a word, the greater distance from which it looks back.
The mission of the press is to spread culture while destroying the attention span.
The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.
The trouble with Germans is not that they fire shells, but that they engrave them with quotations from Kant.
There are people who can never forgive a beggar for their not having given him anything.
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.
To me all men are equal: there are jackasses everywhere, and I have the same contempt for them all.
Virginity is the ideal of those who want to deflower.
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.’
You would be surprised how hard it often is to translate an action into thought.