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

— Theodor Adorno Minima Moralia (1951)

Die fast unlösbare Aufgabe besteht darin, weder von der Macht der anderen, noch von der eigenen Ohnmacht sich dumm machen zu lassen.

Original text (German)

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Notes from Wikiquote

E. Jephcott, trans. (1974), § 34

More quotes by Theodor Adorno

Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy.

The Authoritarian Personality (1950)

Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.

Minima Moralia (1951)

Advancing bourgeois society liquidates memory, time, recollection as irrational leftovers of the past.

Was bedeutet Aufarbeitung der Vergangenheit (1959)

Jazz is the false liquidation of art — instead of utopia becoming reality it disappears from the picture.

The departmentalization of mind is a means of abolishing mind where it is not exercised ex officio, under contract.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Theodor Adorno (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.