Theodor W. Adorno Quotes

The unconscious is not a demoniacal monster, but a natural entity which, as far as moral sense, aesthetic taste, and intellectual judgment go, is completely neutral.It only becomes dangerous when our conscious attitude to it is hopelessly wrong. To the degree that we repress it, its danger increases.

Compassionate love may be strong. It sobs, it burns, then it wipes away its tears – and it does nothing.

We say we embrace humanity, but what does that mean? We are all defined by our limits, so to what extent can we embrace all this? Because we all contain within ourselves equally the capacity for kindness, as much as for cruelty or evil. And the best of us are able to suppress those baser impulses, instincts. That's the war within.

The functional importance of the ego is manifested in the fact that normally control over the approaches to motility devolves upon it. Thus in its relation to the id it is like a man on horse back, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength while the ego uses borrowed forces.

Conscience reigns but it does not govern.

In the beginning this is bound to happen. You have been sitting on the lid that covers your repressions, and you have been riding on that lid a long time, trying continuously to hold down everything beneath it. To become a witness means that you have finally jumped off the lid; now you will only stand aside and will not do anything. Now you will no longer repress, now you will just witness. So everything suppressed will arise, all the repressions will catch fire; you will find flames leaping where there were only ashes.

What good is power when you're too wise to use it?

At times discreetly, at times disgustingly, I yielded to the most fatal temptation whenever I could no longer bear it: as a result of impatience, Orpheus lost Eurydice; as a result of impatience, I lost myself.

There are men who would do anything, asleep, and I'm not sure what stops them when they wake. I do not know how they draw the line.

The educated man tries to repress the inferior one in himself, without realizing that by this he forces the latter to become revolutionary.

Weak minds make treaties with the passions they cannot overcome, and try to purchase happiness at the expense of principle; but the resolute will of a strong man scorns such means, and struggles nobly with his foe to achieve great deeds.

Better not to give in to it.

Everyone represses everything. Do you think any of these "normal" human beings really do exactly what they want to do all the time? 'Course not. It's just the same. We're middle-class and we're British. Repression is in our veins.

As soon as one promises not to do something, it becomes the one thing above all others that one most wishes to do.

A man who has not passed through the inferno of his passions has never overcome them. They then dwell in the house next door, and at any moment a flame may dart out and set fire to his own house. Whenever we give up, leave behind, and forget too much, there is always the danger that the things we have neglected will return with added force.

It's hard to be strong and be weak at the same time. So I spent a lot of time sitting still. Sitting still for hours, not moving a muscle. Really concentrated work, so I'm ready. I'm ready for my performance.

In each human heart terror survives The ravin it has gorged: the loftiest fear All that they would disdain to think were true: Hypocrisy and custom make their minds The fanes of many a worship, now outworn. They dare not devise good for man's estate, And yet they know not that they do not dare.

For Reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and Passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.

Everything dictated silence and self-control but I couldn't restrain myself and spoke my mind.

Hard to say what's right when all I wanna do is wrong.

I'm naturally inclined to have sex with every beautiful woman I see. But that doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

To allow lust (or strong desires) to govern our life is to exalt our will over God's.

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good...Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is.

Conscience, the organ of feeling which dominates us and of the opinions which rule us, is presumptuous in the strong, timid in the weak and unfortunate, uneasy in the undecided.