Scott Bradford: Off on a Tangent

Karl Kraus

Karl Kraus (1874-1936) was an Austrian writer, journalist, playwright, poet, and satirist. He was known for his aphorisms, press criticism, and satires of German and Austrian culture and politics.

An aphorism can never be the whole truth; it is either a half-truth or a truth-and-a-half.
The Torch (Die Fackel)
Education is what most people receive, many pass on, and few have.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
First you hope to win [a war]. Then you expect the enemy to lose. Then you are satisfied that the enemy too is suffering. In the end, you’re surprised that everyone lost.
The Torch (Die Fackel)
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.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
It is better not to express what one means, than to express what one does not mean.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
Language is the mother of thought, not its handmaiden.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
Love and art do not embrace what is beautiful, but what is made beautiful by this embrace.
Taken Literally
Many desire to kill me, and many wish to spend an hour chatting with me. The law protects me from the former.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
The development of technology will leave only one problem: the infirmity of human nature.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
The esthete stands in the same relation to beauty as the pornographer stands to love, and the politician stands to life.
The Torch (Die Fackel)
The making of a journalist [is having] no ideas and the ability to express them.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
The real truths are those that can be invented.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
The secret of the demagogue is to appear as dumb as his audience so that these people can believe themselves as smart as he.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
The superman is a premature ideal, one that presupposes a man.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
There are women who are not beautiful, but only look that way.
Dicta and Contradictions
To be human is erroneous.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
To me all men are equal. There are jackasses everywhere, and I have the same contempt for them all.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
Today's literature [is] prescriptions written by patients.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths
You don't even live once.
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.