“War is, at first, the hope that we will be better off; next, the expectation that he other fellow will be worse off; then, the satisfaction that he isn’t any better off; and, finally, the surprise at everyone’s being worse off.”

Karl Kraus (1874 to 1936)

Karl Kraus was an Austrian journalist, critic, playwright, and poet who has been compared with Juvenal and Jonathan Swift for his satiric vision and command of language.

In German literature he ranks as an outstanding writer of the World War I era, but, because his work is almost untranslatably idiomatic, his talents have not been widely recognised.