An aphorism is never exactly true; it is either a half-truth or one-and-a-half truths.
Psychoanalysts are father confessors who like to listen to the sins of the father as well.
Heinrich Heine so loosened the corsets of the German language that today every little salesman can fondle her breasts.
In Berlin, things are serious but not hopeless. In Vienna, they are hopeless but not serious.
There are people who can never forgive a beggar for their not having given him anything.
When I want to go to sleep, I must first get a whole menagerie of voices to shut up. You wouldn’t believe what a racket they make in my room.
Education is what most receive, many pass on, and few possess.
War is, at first, the hope that one will be better off; next, the expectation that the other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn’t any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone’s being worse off.
A journalist is stimulated by a deadline. He writes worse when he has time.
War: first, one hopes to win; then one expects the enemy to lose; then, one is satisfied that he too is suffering; in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.
You don’t even live once.
Hate must make a man productive. Otherwise one might as well love.
A great deal of learning can be packed into an empty head.
The world has become uglier since it began to look into a mirror every day; so let us settle for the mirror image and do without an inspection of the original.
The immorality of men triumphs over the amorality of women.
Squeeze human nature into the straitjacket of criminal justice and crime will appear.
Truth is a clumsy servant that breaks the dishes while washing them.
He who sleeps half a day has won half a life.
Life is an effort that deserves a better cause.
One can translate an editorial but not a poem. For one can go across the border naked but not without one’s skin; for, unlike clothes, one cannot get a new skin.