Theodor Adorno Quotes

Quotes about:

• The power of the culture industry's ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness

  Theodor Adorno

  Culture, Conformity, Consciousness

  Theodor W Adorno (2005). “The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture”, p.104, Routledge

  45 Copy quote

• 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

  Political, Energy, Levels

  Theodor W Adorno (2005). “The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture”, p.137, Routledge

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• People have so manipulated the concept of freedom that it finally boils down to the right of the stronger and richer to take from the weaker and poorer whatever they still have.

  Theodor Adorno

  People, Stronger, Stills

  65 Copy quote

• Vague expression permits the hearer to imagine whatever suits him and what he already thinks in any case.

  Theodor Adorno

  Thinking, Expression, Suits

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.101, Verso

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• Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: they’re only animals.

  Theodor Adorno

  Animal, Thinking, Holocaust

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• Fascism is itself less 'ideological', in so far as it openly proclaims the principle of domination that is elsewhere concealed.

  Theodor Adorno

  Principles, Fascism, Domination

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.108, Verso

  16 Copy quote

• Love is the power to see similarity in the dissimilar.

  Theodor Adorno

  Love, Love Is, Romance

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.191, Verso

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• Domination delegates the physical violence on which it rests to the dominated.

  Theodor Adorno

  Violence, Domination, Physical Violence

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.182, Verso

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• Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.

  Theodor Adorno

  Personality, Tolerance, Mark

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• Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

  Theodor Adorno

  Emotional, Democracy, Source

  Theodor W. Adorno, Samuel H. Flowerman (1964). “The Authoritarian Personality: Studies in Prejudice”

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• The task of art today is to bring chaos into order.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, Order, Design

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.222, Verso

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• As naturally as the ruled always took the morality imposed upon them more seriously than did the rulers themselves, the deceived masses are today captivated by the myth of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them. The misplaced love of the common people for the wrong which is done to them is a greater force than the cunning of the authorities.

  Theodor Adorno

  Successful, People, Done

  36 Copy quote

• Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices.

  Theodor Adorno

  Black And White, Choices, Would Be

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.132, Verso

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• People know what they want because they know what other people want.

  Theodor Adorno

  People, Want, Knows

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• The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them.

  Theodor Adorno

  Triumph, Culture, Use

  Theodor W Adorno (2005). “The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture”, p.12, Routledge

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• Art respects the masses, by standing up to them for what they could be, rather than conforming to them in their degraded state.

  Theodor Adorno

  Art, States, Mass

  36 Copy quote

• To say 'we' and mean 'I' is one of the most recondite insults.

  Theodor Adorno

  Mean, Comeback, Insult

  "Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life".

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• Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.

  Theodor Adorno

  Life, Life Changing, Wrong Life

  Theodor Adorno, Richard Leppert, Susan H. Gillespie (2002). “Essays on Music”, p.36, Univ of California Press

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• There is no love that is not an echo.

  Theodor Adorno

  Echoes, No Love

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.217, Verso

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• On their way toward modern science human beings have discarded meaning. The concept is replaced by the formula, the cause by rules and probability.

  Theodor Adorno

  Way, Causes, Modern

  Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno (2002). “Dialectic of Enlightenment”, p.3, Stanford University Press

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• There's not much need for prophets who are in synch with their society.

  Theodor Adorno

  Needs, Prophet

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• The basest person is capable of perceiving the weaknesses of the greatest, the most stupid, the errors in the thought of the most intelligent.

  Theodor Adorno

  Stupid, Intelligent, Errors

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.50, Verso

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• The hardest hit, as everywhere, are those who have no choice.

  Theodor Adorno

  Choices, Hardest Hit, Hardest

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.39, Verso

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• In the abstract conception of universal wrong, all concrete responsibility vanishes.

  Theodor Adorno

  Responsibility, Abstract, Concrete

  Theodor W. Adorno, E. F. N. Jephcott (2005). “Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life”, p.25, Verso

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• When all actions are mathematically calculated, they also take on a stupid quality.

  Theodor Adorno

  Stupid, Risk, Quality

  Theodor W. Adorno, Rolf Tiedemann (2003). “Can One Live After Auschwitz?: A Philosophical Reader”, p.58, Stanford University Press

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