Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Nowadays the thief cannot be distinguished from his victim. Neither has any valuable objects on him.
It is uplifting to lose one?s faith in a reality which looks the way it is described in a newspaper.
Prussia: freedom of movement with a muzzle. Austria: an isolation cell in which screaming is allowed.
How unreliable is the woman caught being faithful! Today she is faithful to you, tomorrow to another.
It is the mission of the press to disseminate intellect and at the same time destroy receptivity to it.
An idea's birth is legitimate if one has the feeling that one is catching oneself plagiarizing oneself.
He who does without the praise of the crowd will not deny himself an opportunity to be his own adherent.
Satire chooses and knows no objects. It arises by fleeing from them and their forcing themselves upon it.
It is not true that one cannot live without a woman. It is simply that one cannot have lived without one.
Culture is the tacit agreement to let the means of subsistence disappear behind the purpose of existence.
How powerful social mores are! Only a spider's web lies across the volcano, yet it refrains from erupting.
Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.
It is regarded as normal to consecrate virginity in general and to lust for its destruction in particular.
There are writers who can express in as little as twenty pages what I occasionally need as many as two for.
One's need for loneliness is not satisfied if one sits at a table alone. There must be empty chairs as well.
The trouble with Germans is not that they fire shells, but that they engrave them with quotations from Kant.
Democracy divides people into workers and loafers. It makes no provision for those who have no time to work.
I knew a man who carried his education in his vest pocket because there was more room there than in his head.
Many desire to kill me, and many wish to spend an hour chatting with me. The law protects me from the former.
The unattractive thing about chauvinism is not so much the aversion to other nations as the love of one's own.
Psychoanalysis: a rabbit that was swallowed by a boa constrictor just wanted to see what it was like in there.
Sex education is legitimate in that girls cannot be taught soon enough how children don't come into the world.
The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so they believe they are clever as he.
I have drawn from the well of language many a thought which I do not have and which I could not put into words.
Technology is a servant who makes so much noise cleaning up in the next room that his master cannot make music.
The extraordinary ability of a woman to forget is not the same as the talent of a lady not to be able to remember.
One must read all writers twice--the good as well as the bad. The one kind will be recognized; the other, unmasked.
Since the law prohibits the keeping of wild animals and I get no enjoyment from pets, I prefer to remain unmarried.
The sound principle of a topsy-turvy lifestyle in the framework of an upside-down world order has stood every test.
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.
Most people are sick. But only a few know that this is something they can be proud of. These are the psychoanalysts.
Christianity has enriched the erotic meal with the appetizer of curiosity and spoiled it with the dessert of remorse.
Mankind became hysterical in the Middle Ages because it poorly repressed the sexual impressions of its Greek boyhood.
It is the style of idealism to console itself for the loss of something old with the ability to gape at something new.
Heinrich Heine so loosened the corsets of the German language that today every little salesman can fondle her breasts.
The most incomprehensible talk comes from people who have no other use for language than to make themselves understood.
How is the world ruled and led to war? Diplomats lie to journalists and believe these lies when they see them in print.
The esthete stands in the same relation to beauty as the pornographer stands to love, and the politician stands to life.
What are all the orgies of Bacchus when compared to the intoxication of someone who completely surrenders to continence!
My unconscious knows more about the consciousness of the psychologist than his consciousness knows about my unconscious.
The art of an actress is sublimated sexuality. But off the stage the fire must be able to reconvert the steam into body.
An artist should make concessions to the listener. That is why Bruckner dedicated one of his symphonies to the Good Lord.
In a well-run mental household there ought to be a thorough cleaning at the threshold of consciousness a few times a year.
A philistine is habitually bored and looks for things that won't bore him. An artist finds things boring, but is never bored.
A father's pride, laid on thick, has always made me wish that the fellow had at least experienced some pain during procreation.
Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.
To be sure, the dog is loyal. But why, on that account, should we take him as an example? He is loyal to man, not to other dogs.
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.
A historian is not always a prophet facing backwards, but a journalist is always someone who afterwards knew everything beforehand.
My request that my writing be read twice has aroused great indignation. Unjustly so. After all, I do not ask that they be read once.