“What can oppose the decline of the west is not a resurrected culture but the utopia that is silently contained in the image of its decline.”

“The darkening of the world makes the irrationality of art rational: radically darkened art.”

“Art is the social antithesis of society, not directly deducible from it.”

“Philosophy, which once seemed outmoded, remains alive because the moment of its realization was missed. The summary judgement that it had merely interpreted the world is itself crippled by resignat...”

“They [the critics] deal with Schoenbergs early works and all their wealth by classifying them, with the music-historical clich, as late romantic post-Wagnerian. One might just as well dispose of Be...”

“Even at that time the hope of leaving behind messages in bottles on the flood of barbarism bursting on Europe was an amiable illusion: the desperate letters stuck in the mud of the spirit of rejuve...”

“The more powerful the class, the more it claims not to exist.”

“The story of terrorism is written by the state and it is therefore highly instructive compared with terrorism, everything else must be acceptable, or in any case more rational and democratic.”

“The more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own life and his own desires. The spectacles estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by the fact that ...”

“I have little use for religion as it is practiced, or for astrology, or for belief in witchcraft or omens of good or ill-luck. I think they all stem from some insufficiency in mens minds, perhaps f...”

“It is only the innocent mind which knows what love is, and the innocent mind can live in the world which is not innocent.”

“So if you can look at all things without allowing pleasure to creep in - at a face, a bird, the colour of a sari, the beauty of a sheet of water shimmering in the sun, or anything that gives deligh...”