There's not much need for prophets who are in synch with their society. Theodor Adorno More Quotes by Theodor Adorno More Quotes From Theodor Adorno Love you will find only where you may show yourself weak without provoking strength. Theodor Adorno weakmaylove The phrase, the world wants to be deceived, has become truer than had ever been intended. People are not only, as the saying goes, falling for the swindle; if it guarantees them even the most fleeting gratification they desire a deception which is nonetheless transparent to them. They force their eyes shut and voice approval, in a kind of self-loathing, for what is meted out to them, knowing fully the purpose for which it is manufactured. Without admitting it they sense that their lives would be completely intolerable as soon as they no longer clung to satisfactions which are none at all. Theodor Adorno eyeselffall It is Proust's courtesy to spare the reader the embarrassment of believing himself cleverer than the author. Theodor Adorno courtesyproustbelieve The objective tendency of the Enlightenment, to wipe out the power of images over man, is not matched by any subjective progress on the part of enlightened thinking towards freedom from images. Theodor Adorno progressmenthinking Thus is order ensured: some have to play the game because they cannot otherwise live, and those who could live otherwise are kept out because they do not want to play the game. It is as if the class from which independent intellectuals have defected takes its revenge, by pressing its demands home in the very domain where the deserter seeks refuge. Theodor Adorno independentrevengehome They [the critics] deal with Schoenberg's early works and all their wealth by classifying them, with the music-historical cliché, as late romantic post-Wagnerian. One might just as well dispose of Beethoven as a late-classicist post-Haydnerian. Theodor Adorno wealthhistoricalmight The inadequacy of the purely purpose-oriented form is revealed for what it is-a monotonous, impoverished boring practicality. Theodor Adorno boringformpurpose The usual reproach against the essay, that it is fragmentary and random, itself assumes the givenness of totality and suggests that man is in control of this totality. The desire of the essay, though, is not to filter the eternal out of the transitory; it wants, rather, to make the transitory eternal. Theodor Adorno usualdesiremen Thinking no longer means anymore than checking at each moment whether one can indeed think. Theodor Adorno momentsmeanthinking The important thing is not the planning of an Index Verborum Prohibitorum of current noble nouns, but rather the examination of their linguistic function. Theodor Adorno nounsnobleimportant The expression if history in things is no other than that of past torment. Theodor Adorno tormentexpressionpast In many people it is already an impertinence to say 'I'. Theodor Adorno impertinencepeople In the nineteenth century the Germans painted their dream and the outcome was invariably vegetable. The French needed only to paint a vegetable and it was already a dream. Theodor Adorno outcomesvegetablesdream It is incumbent upon philosophy ... to provide a refuge for freedom. Not that there is any hope that it could break the political tendencies that are throttling freedom throughout the world both from within and without and whose violence permeates the very fabric of philosophical argumentation. Theodor Adorno philosophicalpoliticalphilosophy What is or is not the jargon is determined by whether the word is written in an intonation which places it transcendently in opposition to its own meaning; by whether the individual words are loaded at the expense of the sentence, its propositional force, and the thought content. Theodor Adorno jargonindividualdetermined The taboos that constitute a man's intellectual stature, often sedimented experiences and unarticulated insights, always operate against inner impulses that he has learned to condemn, but which are so strong that only an unquestioning and unquestioned authority can hold them in check. Theodor Adorno strongintellectualmen Advancing bourgeois society liquidates memory, time, recollection as irrational leftovers of the past. Theodor Adorno leftoversmemoriespast The noiseless din that we have long known in dreams, booms at us in waking hours from newspaper headlines. Theodor Adorno wakingdreamlong Happiness is obsolete: uneconomic. Theodor Adorno obsolete He who matures early lives in anticipation. Theodor Adorno early-lifeanticipation
