“Art is the social antithesis of society, not directly deducible from it.”

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

“The darkening of the world makes the irrationality of art rational: radically darkened art.”

“Thought as such… is an act of negation, of resistance to that which is forced upon it; this is what thought has inherited from its archetype, the relation between labor and material. Today, when ideologues tend more than ever to encourage thought to be positive, they cleverly note that positivity runs precisely counter to thought, and that it takes friendly persuasion by social authority to accustom thought to positivity.”

“The forms of art reflect the history of man more truthfully than do documents themselves.”

“Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth.”

“He who stands aloof runs the risk of believing himself better than others and misusing his critique of society as an ideology for his private interest. While he gropingly forms his own life in the frail image of a true existence, he should never forget its frailty,nor how little the image is a substitute for true life. Against suchawareness, however, pulls the momentum of the bourgeois within him.”