Theodor Adorno Quotes

Quotes about:

• People have so manipulated the concept of freedom that it finally boils down to the right of the stronger and richer to take from the weaker and poorer whatever they still have.

  Theodor Adorno

  People, Stronger, Stills

  54 Copy quote

• The power of the culture industry's ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness

  Theodor Adorno

  Culture, Conformity, Consciousness

  Theodor W Adorno (2005). “The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture”, p.104, Routledge

  36 Copy quote

• Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.

  Theodor Adorno

  Animal, Thinking, Holocaust

  78 Copy quote

• Love is the power to see similarity in the dissimilar.

  Theodor Adorno

  Love, Love Is, Romance

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.191, Verso

  47 Copy quote

• To say 'we' and mean 'I' is one of the most recondite insults.

  Theodor Adorno

  Mean, Comeback, Insult

  "Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life".

  10 Copy quote

• The forms of art reflect the history of man more truthfully than do documents themselves.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, Men, Form

  Theodor W. Adorno (2014). “Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction: Notes, a Draft and Two Schemata”, p.236, John Wiley & Sons

  23 Copy quote

• People know what they want because they know what other people want.

  Theodor Adorno

  People, Want, Knows

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• The task of art today is to bring chaos into order.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, Order, Design

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.222, Verso

  26 Copy quote

• Art respects the masses, by standing up to them for what they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, States, Mass

  27 Copy quote

• The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them.

  Theodor Adorno

  Triumph, Culture, Use

  Theodor W Adorno (2005). “The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture”, p.12, Routledge

  19 Copy quote

• When all actions are mathematically calculated, they also take on a stupid quality.

  Theodor Adorno

  Stupid, Risk, Quality

  Theodor W. Adorno, Rolf Tiedemann (2003). “Can One Live After Auschwitz?: A Philosophical Reader”, p.58, Stanford University Press

  8 Copy quote

• In the abstract conception of universal wrong, all concrete responsibility vanishes.

  Theodor Adorno

  Responsibility, Abstract, Concrete

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.25, Verso

  3 Copy quote

• Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices.

  Theodor Adorno

  Black And White, Choices, Would Be

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.132, Verso

  32 Copy quote

• As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities.

  Theodor Adorno

  Successful, People, Done

  29 Copy quote

• There is no love that is not an echo.

  Theodor Adorno

  Echoes, No Love

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.217, Verso

  48 Copy quote

• The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass available.

  Theodor Adorno

  Eye, Glasses, Splinters

  Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert, Susan H. Gillespie (2002). “Essays on Music”, p.64, Univ of California Press

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• That all men are alike is exactly what society would like to hear. It considers actual or imagined differences as stigmas indicating that not enough has yet been done; that something has still been left outside its machinery, not quite determined by its totality.

  Theodor Adorno

  Men, Differences, Culture

  Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert, Susan H. Gillespie (2002). “Essays on Music”, p.79, Univ of California Press

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• Lies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion.

  Theodor Adorno

  Lying, Deceit, Needs

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.30, Verso

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• He who integrates is lost.

  Theodor Adorno

  Integrating, Lost

  Theodor Adorno (2002). “The Stars Down to Earth”, p.174, Routledge

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• On their way toward modern science human beings have discarded meaning. The concept is replaced by the formula, the cause by rules and probability.

  Theodor Adorno

  Way, Causes, Modern

  Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno (2002). “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, p.3, Stanford University Press

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• There's not much need for prophets who are in synch with their society.

  Theodor Adorno

  Needs, Prophet

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• Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.

  Theodor Adorno

  Personality, Tolerance, Mark

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• The Enlightenment has always aimed at liberating men from fear and establishing their sovereignty. Yet the fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant.

  Theodor Adorno

  Men, Earth, Enlightened

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• Once the last trace of emotion has been eradicated, nothing remains of thought but absolute tautology.

  Theodor Adorno

  Lasts, Emotion, Tautology

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.123, Verso

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• It is not the office of art to spotlight alternatives, but to resist by its form alone the course of the world, which permanently puts a pistol to men's heads.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, Men, Office

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