Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Theodor Adorno

Quote by Theodor Adorno

“The very people who burst with proofs of exuberant vitality could easily be taken for prepared corpses, from whom the news of their not-quite-successful decease has been withheld for reasons of population policy. Underlying the prevalent health is death. All the movements of health resemble the reflex-movements of beings whose hearts have stopped beating.”

Quote by Theodor Adorno

Work

Minima Moralia: Reflections on a Damaged Life

Hermann Broch's Minima Moralia is a collection of philosophical essays that delve into the intricacies of human existence and the challenges of contemporary life. The essays, written in German and translated into English, are characterized by their introspective nature and their exploration of the author's personal experiences. Broch's work is known for its depth of thought and its ability to connect philosophical ideas with everyday life. more

Author

Theodor Adorno
Theodor Adorno

Theodor Adorno was a German sociologist, philosopher, and musicologist. He is renowned for his critical theory, co-developed with Max Horkheimer and other members of the Frankfurt School. Adorno's research focused on the analysis of modern society, culture, and the influence of mass culture on individuals. more

You May Also Like

“On the one hand, man is a body, in the same way that this may be said of every other animal organism. On the other hand, man has a body. That is, man experiences himself as an entity that is not identical with his body, but that, on the contrary, has that body at its disposal. In other words, man's experience of himself always hovers in a balance between being and having a body, a balance that must be redressed again and again.”

“The human organism is thus still developing biologically while already standing in a relationship to its environmont. In other words, the process of becoming man takes place in an interrelationship with an environment. (...) From the moment of birth, man's organismic development, and indeed a large part of his biological being as such, are subjected to continuing socially determined interference.”

“Everything is reduced to what's physical in the end, because it's the filth inside people's minds that creates all the evil. What is a body, anyway? I suppose you've got to abuse your body to understand it. If you're not prepared to humiliate yourself in order to give somebody else a moment's pleasure, I don't believe that you've actually lived.”

“... regard this body as a machine which, having been made by the hand of God, is incomparably better ordered than any machine that can be devised by man, and contains in itself movements more wonderful than those in any machine. ... it is for all practical purposes impossible for a machine to have enough organs to make it act in all the contingencies of life in the way in which our reason makes us act.”

“I am thinking, therefore I exist. (...) I was a substance whose whole essence or nature is solely to think, and which does not require any place, or depend on any material thing, in order to exist. Accordingly this 'I' - that is, the soul by which I am what I am - is entirely distinct from the body, and indeed is easier to know than the body, and would not fail to be whatever it is, even if the body did not exist.”