The specific is not exclusive: it lacks the aspiration to totality. Theodor Adorno More Quotes by Theodor Adorno More Quotes From Theodor Adorno But he who dies in despair has lived his whole life in vain. Theodor Adorno vain despair life What the philosophers once knew as life has become the sphere of private existence and now of mere consumption, dragged along as an appendage of the process of material production, without autonomy or substance of its own. Theodor Adorno spheres substance life Insane sects grow with the same rhythm as big organizations. It is the rhythm of total destruction. Theodor Adorno destruction insane organization He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest. While he gropingly forms his own life in the frail image of a true existence, he should never forget its frailty, nor how little the image is a substitute for true life. Against such awareness, however, pulls the momentum of the bourgeois within him. Theodor Adorno risk running believe Whoever is versed in the jargon does not have to say what he thinks, does not even have to think it properly. The jargon takes over this task. Theodor Adorno tasks doe thinking 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 levels political energy When I made my theoretical model, I could not have guessed that people would try to realise it with Molotov cocktails. Theodor Adorno molotov-cocktail trying people All the world's not a stage. Theodor Adorno stage world Estrangement shows itself precisely in the elimination of distance between people. Theodor Adorno elimination distance people Horror is beyond the reach of psychology. Theodor Adorno psychology horror The body's habituation to walking as normal stems from the good olddays. It was the bourgeois form of locomotion: physicaldemythologization, free of the spell of hieratic pacing, rooflesswandering, breathless flight. Human dignity insisted on the right towalk, a rhythm not extorted from the body by command or terror. Thewalk, the stroll, were private ways of passing time, the heritage ofthe feudal promenade in the nineteenth century. Theodor Adorno heritage body way Only thought which does violence to itself is hard enough to shatter myth. Theodor Adorno violence enough doe The capacity for fear and for happiness are the same, the unrestricted openness to experience amounting to self-abandonment in which the vanquished rediscovers himself. Theodor Adorno self fear discovery Modernity is a qualitative, not a chronological, category. Theodor Adorno qualitative modernity categories The human is indissolubly linked with imitation: a human being only becomes human at all by imitating other human beings. Theodor Adorno imitating-others imitation empathy None of the abstract concepts comes closer to fulfilled utopia than that of eternal peace. Theodor Adorno fulfilled utopia abstract Dialectic thought is an attempt to break through the coercion of logic by its own means. Theodor Adorno break-through coercion mean The thought that murders the wish that fathered it will be overtaken by the revenge of stupidity Theodor Adorno stupidity revenge wish Lies are told only to convey to someone that one has no need either of him or his good opinion. Theodor Adorno deceit lying needs People know what they want because they know what other people want. Theodor Adorno knows want people
