Theodor Adorno Quotes - Page 2

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• 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

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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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• Advice to intellectuals: let no-one represent you.

  Theodor Adorno

  Advice

  Theodor W. Adorno (1978). “Minima Moralia”, p.128, Verso

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• A German is someone who cannot tell a lie without believing it himself.

  Theodor Adorno

  Lying, Believe

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.110, Verso

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• In the end, glorification of splendid underdogs is nothing other than glorification of the splendid system that makes them so.

  Theodor Adorno

  Underdog, Splendid, Ends

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.28, Verso

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• The basest person is capable of perceiving the weaknesses of the greatest, the most stupid, the errors in the thought of the most intelligent.

  Theodor Adorno

  Stupid, Intelligent, Errors

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.50, Verso

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• The culture industry not so much adapts to the reactions of its customers as it counterfeits them.

  Theodor Adorno

  Stupidity, Culture, Reactions

  Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert, Susan H. Gillespie (2002). “Essays on Music”, p.46, Univ of California Press

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• Domination delegates the physical violence on which it rests to the dominated.

  Theodor Adorno

  Violence, Domination, Physical Violence

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.182, Verso

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• The poor are prevented from thinking by the discipline of others, the rich by their own.

  Theodor Adorno

  Thinking, Discipline, Rich

  Theodor W. Adorno, Rolf Tiedemann (2003). “Can One Live After Auschwitz?: A Philosophical Reader”, p.76, Stanford University Press

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• 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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• What can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline.

  Theodor Adorno

  Culture, West, Utopia

  Theodor W. Adorno (1982). “Prisms”, p.72, MIT Press

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• Every work of art is an uncommitted crime.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, Crime, Uncommitted

  Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert, Susan H. Gillespie (2002). “Essays on Music”, p.41, Univ of California Press

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• The hardest hit, as everywhere, are those who have no choice.

  Theodor Adorno

  Choices, Hardest Hit, Hardest

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.39, Verso

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• Knowledge, which is power, knows no limits, either in its enslavement of creation or in its deference to worldly masters.

  Theodor Adorno

  Knowledge, Limits, Creation

  Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno (2002). “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, p.2, Stanford University Press

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• Tenderness between people is nothing other than awareness of the possibility of relations without purpose.

  Theodor Adorno

  People, Purpose, Awareness

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.41, Verso

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• Dissonance is the truth about harmony.

  Theodor Adorno

  Harmony, Dissonance

  Theodor W. Adorno (2013). “Aesthetic Theory”, p.151, A&C Black

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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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• Art as a whole is a riddle. Another way of putting this is to say that art expresses something while at the same time hiding it.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, Poetry, Way

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• Triviality is evil - triviality, that is, in the form of consciousness and mind that adapts itself to the world as it is, that obeys the principle of inertia. And this principle of inertia truly is what is radically evil.

  Theodor Adorno

  Evil, Mind, Principles

  Theodor W. Adorno, Rolf Tiedemann (2003). “Can One Live After Auschwitz?: A Philosophical Reader”, p.439, Stanford University Press

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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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• Happiness is obsolete: uneconomic.

  Theodor Adorno

  Obsolete

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

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• Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with them men.

  Theodor Adorno

  Technology, Men, Gestures

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.40, Verso

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• People at the top are closing ranks so tightly that all possibility of subjective deviation has gone, and difference can be sought only in the more distinguished cut of an evening dress.

  Theodor Adorno

  Cutting, Differences, People

  Theodor W. Adorno, Rolf Tiedemann (2003). “Can One Live After Auschwitz?: A Philosophical Reader”, p.77, Stanford University Press

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• Culture is only true when implicitly critical, and the mind which forgets this revenges itself in the critics it breeds. Criticism is an indispensable element of culture.

  Theodor Adorno

  Revenge, Mind, Criticism

  Theodor W. Adorno (1982). “Prisms”, p.22, MIT 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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