Not only is the self entwined in society; it owes society its existence in the most literal sense. Theodor Adorno More Quotes by Theodor Adorno More Quotes From Theodor Adorno What human beings seek to learn from nature is how to use it to dominate wholly both it and human beings. Nothing else counts. Theodor Adorno naturehumansuse Suffering has as much right to be expressed as a martyr has to cry out. So it may have been false to say that writing poetry after Auschwitz is impossible. Theodor Adorno sufferingwritingart Thought as such… is an act of negation, of resistance to that which is forced upon it; this is what thought has inherited from its archetype, the relation between labor and material. Today, when ideologues tend more than ever to encourage thought to be positive, they cleverly note that positivity runs precisely counter to thought, and that it takes friendly persuasion by social authority to accustom thought to positivity. Theodor Adorno being-positivepositivityrunning Freud made the discovery- quite genuinely, simply through working on his own material- that the more deeply one explores the phenomena of human individuation, the more unreservedly one grasps the individual as a self-contained and dynamic entity, the closer one draws to that in the individual which is really no longer individual. Theodor Adorno individualselfdiscovery The joke of our time is the suicide of intention. Theodor Adorno intentionsadsuicide Exuberant health is always, as such, sickness also. Theodor Adorno health-caresicknesshealth Art is the social antithesis of society, not directly deducible from it. Theodor Adorno art-issocialart A successful work of art is not one which resolves objective contradictions in a spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure. Theodor Adorno successartthinking In the innermost recesses of humanism, as its very soul, there rages a frantic prisoner who, as a Fascist, turns the world into a prison. Theodor Adorno prisonsoulworld It would be advisable to think of progress in the crudest, most basic terms: that no one should go hungry anymore, that there should be no more torture, no more Auschwitz. Only then will the idea of progress be free from lies. Theodor Adorno lyingideasthinking The empirical usability of the sacred ceremonial words makes both the speaker and listener believe in their corporeal presence. Theodor Adorno usabilitysacredbelieve In Anglo-Saxon countries the prostitutes look as if they purveyed, along with sin, the attendant pains of hell. Theodor Adorno paincountrylooks Rigour and purity in assembling words, however simple the result, create a vacuum. Theodor Adorno vacuumspuritysimple The culture industry perpetually cheats its consumers of what it perpetually promises. The promissory note which, with its plots and staging, it draws on pleasure is endlessly prolonged; the promise, which is actually all the spectacle consists of, is illusory: all it actually confirms is that the real point will never be reached, that the diner must be satisfied with the menu. Theodor Adorno plotrealpromise In the end, the writer is not even allowed to live in his writing. Theodor Adorno endswriting No harm comes to man from outside alone: dumbness is the objective spirit. Theodor Adorno harmspiritmen Life has become the ideology of its own absence. Theodor Adorno ideologyabsencelife The work of art still has something in common with enchantment: it posits its own, self-enclosed area, which is withdrawn from the context of profane existence, and in which special laws apply. Theodor Adorno selflawart A German is someone who cannot tell a lie without believing it himself. Theodor Adorno believelying Anti-Semitism is the rumour about the Jews. Theodor Adorno rumoursjewanti-semitism
