Kurt Tucholsky's best-known quotes
The top 3 according to 3 votes from people: For that is humour: seeing through things as if they were made of glass. · What may satire do? Everything. · The satirist is a wounded idealist: he wants the world to be good, it is bad, and so he charges against the bad.. (Updated Nov 19, 2025.)
What may satire do? Everything. Plus international stupidity, the dog that only barks and the German who plays Skat: Kurt Tucholsky's sharpest lines, sourced from Die Weltbühne and his letters.
Automatically translated (original in Deutsch). See the original
Top 12
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1
For that is humour: seeing through things as if they were made of glass.
Letter to Mary Gerold, 4 October 1918.
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2
What may satire do? Everything.
What May Satire Do?, Berliner Tageblatt, 1919.
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3
The satirist is a wounded idealist: he wants the world to be good, it is bad, and so he charges against the bad.
What May Satire Do?, 1919.
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4
Human stupidity is international.
"Hégésippe Simon", Die Weltbühne, 15 December 1931.
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5
Dog owners are the most inconsiderate people in the world.
"Treatise on the Dog", Die Weltbühne, 2 August 1927.
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6
When a German's heart is truly content, he doesn't sing. He plays Skat.
Das neue Lied.
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7
For what the Church cannot prevent, it blesses.
A Pyrenees Book (1927).
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8
The reader has it easy: he can choose his writers.
"Snippets", Die Weltbühne, 3 February 1931.
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9
Expect nothing. Today: that is your life.
"Snippets", Die Weltbühne, 15 September 1931.
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10
A man's worth does not depend on his pay book.
Letter to Walter Hasenclever, 4 March 1933.
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11
Your own dog doesn't make noise; it just barks.
Uhu, 1 June 1930.
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12
This is the truest of all democracies, the democracy of death.
"Fear", Die Weltbühne, 9 July 1929.
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