The empirical usability of the sacred ceremonial words makes both the speaker and listener believe in their corporeal presence. Theodor Adorno More Quotes by Theodor Adorno More Quotes From Theodor Adorno There is something embarrassing in... the way in which, ... turning suffering into images, harsh and uncompromising though they are, ... wounds the shame we feel in the presence of the victims. For these victims are used to create something, works of art, that are thrown to the consumption of a world which destroyed them. Theodor Adorno sufferingwayart Philosophy ... must not bargain away anything of the emphatic concept of truth. Theodor Adorno conceptsbargainsphilosophy In organized groups such as the army or the Church there is either no mention of love whatsoever between the members, or it is expressed only in a sublimated and indirect way, through the mediation of some religious imagine in the love of whom the members unite and whose all-embracing love they are supposed to imitate in their attitude towards each other. It is one of the basic tenets of fascist leadership to keep primary libidinal energy on an unconscious level so as to divert its manifestations in a way suitable to political ends. Theodor Adorno armyreligiousattitude When all actions are mathematically calculated, they also take on a stupid quality. Theodor Adorno qualityriskstupid The invocation of science, of its ground rules, of the exclusive validity of the methods that science has now completely become, now constitutes a surveillance authority punishing free, uncoddled, undisciplined thought and tolerating nothing of mental activity other than what has been methodologically sanctioned. Science and scholarship, the medium of autonomy, has degenerated into an instrument of heteronomy. Theodor Adorno undisciplinedsurveillanceauthority For a man who no longer has a homeland, writing becomes a place to live. Theodor Adorno emigrationwritingmen He who has laughter on his side has no need of proof. Theodor Adorno laughterjoyhappiness An emancipated society, on the other hand, would not be a unitary state, but the realization of universality in the reconciliation of differences. Theodor Adorno differencesculturehands By abstaining from all definite content, whether as formal logic and theory of science or as the legend of Being beyond all beings, philosophy declared its bankruptcy regarding concrete social goals. Theodor Adorno legendsgoalphilosophy So the experience of death is turned into that of the exchange of functionaries, and anything in the natural relationship to death that is not wholly absorbed into the social one is turned over to hygiene. In being seen as no more than the exit of a living creature from the social combine, death has been domesticated: dying merely confirms the absolute irrelevance of the natural organism in face of the social absolute. Theodor Adorno hygieneirrelevancedying A pencil and rubber are of more use to thought than a battalion of assistants. To happiness the same applies as to truth: one does not have it, but is in it. Theodor Adorno rubberusedoe Everything that has ever been called folk art has always reflected domination. Theodor Adorno dominationfolksart Death is imposed only on creatures, not their creations, and has therefore always appeared in art in a broken form: as allegory. Theodor Adorno creationbrokenart Fascism is itself less 'ideological', in so far as it openly proclaims the principle of domination that is elsewhere concealed. Theodor Adorno dominationfascismprinciples Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth. Theodor Adorno inspirationallifeart It is barbaric to write poetry after Auschwitz. Theodor Adorno auschwitz Bourgeois society is ruled by equivalence. It makes the dissimilar comparable by reducing it to abstract quantities. To the enlightenment, that which does not reduce to numbers, and ultimately to the one, becomes illusion. Theodor Adorno enlightenmentdoenumbers The most powerful person is he who is able to do least himself and burden others most with the things for which he lends his name and pockets the credit. Theodor Adorno pocketspowerfulnames The whole is the false. Theodor Adorno wholetruth Very evil people cannot really be imagined dying. Theodor Adorno evil-peopleevilpeople
