Minima Moralia

The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us.

Tenderness between people is nothing other than awareness of the possibility of relations without purpose.

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

The straight line is regarded as the shortest distance between two people, as if they were points.

Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.

Marriage as a community of interests unfailingly means the degradation of the interested parties, and it is the perfidy of the world's arrangements that no one, even if aware of it, can escape such degradation. The idea might therefore be entertained that marriage without ignominy is a possibility reserved for those spared the pursuit of interests, for the rich. But the possibility is purely formal, for the privileged are precisely those in whom the pursuit of interests has become second-nature—they would not otherwise uphold privilege.