# Karl Kraus's best aphorisms

On journalists, Vienna, psychoanalysis and language: Karl Kraus's sharpest lines from Die Fackel and his aphorism collections Sayings and Contradictions, Pro domo et mundo and By Night.

- 0 votes · 14 items
- Oct 29, 2019 · fraunetzfund
- https://even.best/en/l/4638/karl-kraus-s-best-aphorisms

## Top 14

1. **Psychoanalysis is that mental illness for which it regards itself as therapy.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — By Night (1918).
2. **To have no thoughts and be able to express them: that is what makes a journalist.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 281 (1909); Pro domo et mundo.
3. **The historian is not always a backward-looking prophet, but the journalist is always one who knew everything beforehand, afterwards.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 298/299; By Night.
4. **Education is what most people receive, many pass on and few have.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 277/278; Pro domo et mundo.
5. **An aphorism never coincides with the truth: it is either a half-truth or one and a half.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 270/271; Sayings and Contradictions.
6. **The devil is an optimist if he thinks he can make people worse.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 277/278; Pro domo et mundo.
7. **Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 288; Pro domo et mundo.
8. **The scandal begins when the police put an end to it.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 263; Sayings and Contradictions.
9. **Satires that the censor understands are rightly banned.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 309/310; Pro domo et mundo.
10. **An artist is only someone who can turn a solution into a riddle.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 406/412; By Night.
11. **Family life is an intrusion into private life.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 270/271; Sayings and Contradictions.
12. **In Vienna the zeros put themselves in front of the one.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Die Fackel 324/325; Pro domo et mundo.
13. **The newspaper is time in a tin.** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Sayings and Contradictions.
14. **Where am I to find the time to not read so much?** (0 · ▲0 ▼0) — Sayings and Contradictions.

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