Pro domo et mundo

Karl Kraus
Translated by Peter Winslow[1]

 

Skepticism has gone from ‘que sais-je’ to ‘weiß ich.’ (F 277-278: 60)

 

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There must have been an immaculate conception of lust at some point in the world. (F 277-278: 61)

 

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Filth finds me unbearable. But we shall part ways only when I too have had enough of it. (F 277-278: 61)

 

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Something does, on occasion, fall from a torch. A bit of pitch. (F 279-280: 5)

 

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Immortals experience the plague of all ages and times. (F 285-286: 31)

 

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Expressions do not fit thoughts as if they were tailored, but as if they were molded and cast. (F 287: 20)

 

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The way out: if people have sacrificed ideals and life for the invention of some vehicle, then use that vehicle to flee the corpses and to get closer to the ideals. (F 288: 14)

 

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And if the earth only knew just how afraid the comet is of coming into contact with it. (300: 26)

 

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Rectifying a mistake requires more than just exchanging it for some truth. That would be prevarication. (F 300: 28)

 

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When God saw that it was good, man’s faith accredited it to vanity, but not to the incertitude of the creator. (F 309-310: 28)

 

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Artists never permit themselves to be compelled through vanity to self-satisfaction. (F 309-310: 28)

 

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There is a kind of productive doubt going over and above a dead ultimatum. I could fill notebooks with the thoughts that I had up to the time I had a thought and volumes with those that I had after I had one. (F 309-310: 28)

 

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Freedom is a necessity for arriving at knowledge. But that knowledge is more of a cage for us than any dogma ever was. (F 309-310: 31)

 

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In pushing the borders of irresponsibility, modern psychologists have plenty of room in the space they make for themselves. (F 309-310: 31)

 

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Some people would just like to make the devil’s acquaintance without burning in hell. (F 309-310: 31)

 

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If the species were engaged only in procreation, then sex education would be sensible. But the species is also engaged in other things—such as sex education. (F 309-310: 32)

 

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Psychology is as useful as instructions for poison. (F 309-310: 40)

 

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The external world is an annoying epiphenomenon of an awkward condition. (F 309-310: 44)

 

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When I take up the pen, nothing can happen to me. Fate would do well to remember that. (F 309-310: 44)

 

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Putting your hand over your eyes—that is the only cloak of invisibility in this disenchanted world. Peeking between your fingers, you see all the people advancing on each other and are protected because they believe that you are thinking if and only if your hand is in front of your face. And not otherwise. (F 315-316: 36)

 

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Art is not about using eggs and fat, but about having fire and pan. (F 323: 13)

 

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We’re just human, we’re all human beings—is not an excuse, but pretentiousness. (F 323: 16)

 

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I have a devastating message for the esthetes. Old Vienna was once new. (F 323: 16)

 

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You have only one possibility to save yourself from the machine. And that is to use it. Only by car will you come around. (F 323: 17)

 

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The mystics sometimes overlook that God is everything, just not a mystic. (F 323: 19)

 

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Thoughts come because I take them at their word. (F 323: 21)

 

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A country horse will sooner get used to automobiles than a passer-by on the Ringstrasse will to me. There has already been a number of accidents because someone got all shy and timid. (F 326-328: 40)

 

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Restaurants are opportunities where restaurateurs greet, guests order, and waiters eat. (F 326-328: 40)

 

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And verily, I say unto you, Berlin will sooner get used to tradition than Vienna will to the machine. (F 326-328: 40)

 

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‘In one ear and out the other’ is just a view of heads as way stations. What I hear has to go out the same ear. (F 326-328: 42)

 

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Should a name serve some satirical effect, then someone objects that the man cannot do anything about his name. The man can, however, not do anything about his lack of talent either. And, yet, I would like to believe that he has to be castigated for it. Now someone might object that a genius could have the same name. But that would not be true. Or rather: in that case, the name would not be ridiculous—even though a satirical whim could find fault with the name Goethe itself, if it belonged to some boob. Just as everything about the great is great, so is everything about the ridiculous ridiculous, and if a name taps into some humorous source, then the person bearing that name is to blame. That’s his name, and rightly so. And if he flees to some pseudonym in a fit of despair, then ridicule will know to find him there as well. (F 326-328: 42-43)

 

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I have no objection to fiction: it seems appropriate that something of no interest to me is said all laborious and long-winded. (F 326-328: 43)

 

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A thought capable of living in two forms does not have it as good as two thoughts living in one form. (F 326-328: 45)

 

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Someone will sooner forgive you for the bad deed that he did to you than for the good deed that he received from you. (F 326-328: 46)

 

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It is good to believe that many things are insignificant and that everything is significant. (F 326-328: 46)

 

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There would be more innocence in the world, if people were responsible for everything they can’t do anything about. (F 326-328: 47)

 

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I work day and night—ensuring that I have lots of free time. To ask a picture in the room how it likes my work, the clock whether it’s tired, and the night how it slept. (F 326-328: 47)

 

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I would gladly give my life to know: what are all these people doing with their expanded horizons? (F 333: 7)

 

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Artists and painting services share a commonality; they both get their hands dirty. But this is precisely what distinguishes writers from journalists. (F 333: 7)

 

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Having delusions of grandeur is not believing that you are more than you are, but that you are what you are. (F 333: 8)

 

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If I really didn’t have such a good memory, it could happen that I remember all the people who remember me. (F 333: 9)

 

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Beautiful world this, where men reproach women for fulfilling their fantasies. (F 333: 10)

 

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Eroticism is to sexuality what profit is to loss. (F 333: 11)

 

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My glosses require commentary. Without it, they are too easy to understand. (F 336-337: 41)

 

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Diagnosis is one of the most widespread diseases. (F 336-337: 41)

 

 

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Actors’ fear of the press is not a vice, but a quality. (F 336-337: 42)

 

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Journalists are stimulated by deadlines. Their writing gets worse whenever they have the time to do it. (F 336-337: 42)

 

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Telling it like it is: an ignoble heroism. Not that it is, but that it’s possible: everything depends on the latter. Tell the possibilities! (F 336-337: 42)

 

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Even in art, the poor may not take anything from the rich; no doubt, however, the rich everything from the poor. (F 338: 16)

 

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There is a jurisdiction of thoughts that has little regard for its respective location. (F 338: 16)

 

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They criticized Herr v. H. because of a lousy sentence. Rightly so. For it turned out that that sentence hails from Jean Paul and was good. (F 338: 16)

 

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The effect of art is a thing that has no beginning and, for that very reason, no end. (F 338: 17)

 

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Art is what becomes the world, not what the world is. (F 338: 17)

 

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Artists are supposed, are said, to experience more? They experience more! (F 338: 17)

 

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Contradictions in artists have to converge somewhere at a higher level, even if it’s where God lives. (F 338: 17)

 

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The sun has Weltanschauung. The earth rotates on its axis. Contradictions in artists are contradictions in the beholders who do not experience night and day concurrently. (F 338: 17)

 

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The revolution against democracy is consummated in the suicide of the tyrant. (F 338: 17)

 


 

Endnote

 

[1] Three things. (1) The title given here, “Pro domo et mundo,” is somewhat misleading. Karl Kraus not only published a book of aphorisms under that title, he also published selections of aphorisms in Die Fackel under that title (see F 309-310: 28-44, F 315-316: 31-37, and F 338: 16-18, for instance). The selection of aphorisms presented here all originate from Die Fackel—be it the aforementioned “Pro domo et mundo” pieces or other selections of aphorisms published in Die Fackel in the time period between 1909 and 1912. And this selection makes no claim to being a complete translation of either Pro domo et mundo, Kraus’s book of aphorisms, or any other selection of aphorisms published in Die Fackel. The title is intended only as an indication of both the context of these aphorisms and the time period in which they were written and published. (2) I will be adding to this selection translations of Kraus’s aphorisms from the aforementioned time period in irregular intervals. (3) All aphorisms included here are in chronological order.