Quote #76

'Running in the street conveys an impression of terror. The victim's fall is already mimed in his attempt to escape it. The position of the head, trying to hold itself up, is that of a drowning man, and the straining face grimaces as if under torture. He has to look ahead, can hardly glance back without stumbling, as if treading the shadow of a foe whose features freeze the limbs.'

More from Theodor Adorno

  1. 'Rather, knowledge comes to us through a network of prejudices, opinions, innervations, self-corrections, presuppositions and exaggerations…
  2. 'Society is integral even before it undergoes totalitarian rule. Its organization also embraces those at war with it by co-ordinating their…
  3. 'Rampant technolgy eliminates luxury, but not by declaring privilege a human right; rather, it does so by both raising the general standard…
  4. 'Tact is the discrimination of differences. It consists in conscious deviations.'
  5. 'Quality is decided by the depth at which the work incorporates the alternatives within itself, and so masters them.'
  6. 'Taste is the ability to keep in balance the contradiction in art between the made and the apparent not-having-become; true works of art, h…
  7. 'Psychology repeats in the case of properties what was done to property. It expropriates the individual by allocating him its happiness.'
  8. 'Technology is making gestures precise and brutal, and with them men.'

All Theodor Adorno quotes