Theodor Adorno Quotes
Theodor W. Adorno was a 20th-century German philosopher, sociologist, musicologist, and a leading figure of the first generation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory. The quotes below are attributed to Theodor Adorno, organized by topic.
Theodor Adorno on Knowledge
-
Attributed to Theodor Adorno:
“The splinter in your eye is the best magnifying-glass.”
Theodor Adorno on Life
-
Attributed to Theodor Adorno:
“Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.”
Theodor Adorno on Love
-
Attributed to Theodor Adorno:
“Love is the power to see similarity in the dissimilar.”
-
Attributed to Theodor Adorno:
“He who has loved and who betrays love does harm not only to the image of the past, but to the past itself.”
Theodor Adorno on Mind
-
Attributed to Theodor Adorno:
“Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.”
Theodor Adorno on Truth
-
Attributed to Theodor Adorno:
“To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric.”
-
Attributed to Theodor Adorno:
“The whole is the false.”
-
Attributed to Theodor Adorno:
“Beauty today can have no other measure except the depth to which a work resolves contradictions.”