Karl Kraus Quotes

Self-criticism, like self-administered brain surgery, is perhaps not a good idea. Can the 'self' see the 'self' with any objectivity?

I never like photos of myself in the beginning. I live with them for three months, put them in a drawer, take them out and look again. I hate the way I look, but of course it's really not that bad.

We are obsessed with image. I don't think we should take it that seriously.

One is honest about oneself either with a sense of shame or with vanity.

If you look in the mirror and don't like what you see, you can find out first hand what it's like to be me.

He who denies his own vanity usually possesses it in so brutal a form that he instinctively shuts his eyes to avoid the necessity of despising himself.

It is 11 years since I have seen my figure in a glass [mirror]. The last reflection I saw there was so disagreeable I resolved to spare myself such mortification in the future.

One of the greatest things my therapist said to me ... and it really blew my mind in the greatest way, he just said, "Look in the mirror less."

This autobiography of mine is a mirror, and I am looking at myself in it all the time. Incidentally I notice the people that pass along at my back - I get glimpses of them in the mirror - and whenever they say or do anything that can help advertise me and flatter me and raise me in my own estimation, I set these things down in my autobiography.

Man shouldn’t be able to see his own face – there’s nothing more sinister. Nature gave him the gift of not being able to see it, and of not being able to stare into his own eyes. Only in the water of rivers and ponds could he look at his face. And the very posture he had to assume was symbolic. He had to bend over, stoop down, to commit the ignominy of beholding himself. The inventor of the mirror poisoned the human heart.

Self-respecting people do not care to peep at their reflections in unexpected mirrors, or to see themselves as others see them.

Maybe I am just a jerk.

I've never met anyone that is their image.

I'm as vain as the next guy. I have a facade on right now. But you can't see it, because it's reality-based.

I do not recall spending long hours in front of a mirror loving my reflection.

I find it very hard to take myself seriously.

I don't like to read about myself, whether it be positive or negative.

Any description of a person that comes from the outside is very hard to deal with. People don't like being summarised. It's nice to receive a compliment, but it makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.

It's difficult to see yourself up on screen without being a critic.

When I watch myself on TV, it's impossible not to say, 'Is that really what my neck looks like?'

Normally I sit there in the films really hating watching myself. Loving watching the films, hating watching myself.

I hate watching myself on film because I am so judgmental.

Balthazar Balsan is not a self-portrait. If he was, I'd have made the character more flattering.

Let us be grateful to the mirror for revealing to us our appearance only.

I don't spend a lot of time in the mirror.