Friedrich Durrenmatt famous quotes

The world is bad but not without hope. It is only hopeless when you look at it from an ideal viewpoint.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Looks #Viewpoints #Literature

News reports don't change the world. Only facts change it, and those have already happened when we get the news.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#News #Literature #World

It is surely easier to confess a murder over a cup of coffee than in front of a jury.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Coffee #Cups #Murder

Our science has become terrible, our research dangerous, our findings deadly. We physicists have to make peace with reality. Reality is not as strong as we are. We will ruin reality.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Strong #Reality #Research

The art of the cuisine, when fully mastered, is the one human capability of which only good things can be said.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Art #Literature #Cuisine

The content of physics is the concern of physicists, its effect the concern of all men.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Men #Physics #Physicist

One does not set fire to a world which is already lost
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Fire #Doe #World

There are risks which are not acceptable: the destruction of humanity is one of them
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Risk #Humanity #Destruction

A state always calls itself fatherland when it is ready for murder.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Murder #States #Ready

Emotions have no place in business, unless you do business with them.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Emotion

We can't afford the wrath of Heaven. We survived a deluge by the skin of our teeth, but an economic crisis would be disastrous.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Heaven #Skins #Economic

A world is in flames, and you are cracking silly jokes.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#War #Silly #World

Politics at all times lead to bloody wars, and not only politics, but also religions as well as social and economic systems of alltimes are spattered with blood. Invariably the big ones devoured the little ones, and the little ones the tiny ones.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#War #History #Religion

Humor is the mask of wisdom.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Funny #Wisdom #Humor

To not be afraid in our world is the message that doesn't derive from reason, but maybe from this mysterious capacity given to humans which we call--not without a little embarrassment--faith.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Faith #Fear #World

It is bad luck for world history that of all people the Russians adopted Communism, because they are totally unfit for it.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#People #History #Luck

Every work of art depicts an aspect of reality.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Art #Work #Reality

Prior to the meeting, there was a prayer. In general, in the United States there was always praying.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Prayer #Praying #Meetings

There is also a reasonable tolerance: reason tolerates the reasonable. It is, however, almost tautological to call this 'tolerance' any longer, as it becomes a matter of course.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Tolerance #Reason #Tolerate

In this country, you never pull the emergency brake, even when there is an emergency. It is imperative that the trains run on schedule.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Running #Country #Brake

Rome has betrayed itself. It knew the truth and chose violence, it knew humaneness and it chose tyranny.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Betrayal #Betrayed #Violence

As the Americans slaughter millions of turkeys every year for the celebration of their deliverance, the Indians, who should be celebrated as saviors, have long been slaughtered. There was even a time when a white man was paid a very decent price for every Indian scalp he could produce.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Men #Long #Deliverance

Then the American flag was saluted. In general, in the United States people always salute the American flag.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#People #Patriotism #American Flag

The individual protests against the world, but he doesn't get beyond protest, he is just a single protester. When he wants to be more than that, he has to counter power with power, he has to oppose the system with another system.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Power #World #Individual

A reasonable change of the world can not be instrumented by pure reason.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Change #World #Reason

In the United States the whites speak well of the Blacks but think bad about them, whereas the Blacks talk bad and think bad aboutthe whites. Whites fear Blacks, because they have a bad conscience, and Blacks hate whites because they need not have a bad conscience.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Hate #Thinking #Racism

The planet on which we live is poorly organized, many areas are overpopulated, others are reserved for a few, technology's potential is only in part realized, and most people are starving.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#People #Earth #Hunger

Humans need justice in the here and now and grace in the thereafter. Justice in the here and now is possible only without freedom,and grace in the thereafter only through the freedom of God.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Freedom #Justice #Grace

Do we still have the right to be more than victims?
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Humanity #Victim

The archetype of all humans, their ideal image, is the computer, once it has liberated itself from its creator, man. The computeris the essence of the human being. In the computer, man reaches his completion.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Men #Evolution #Computer

When death has you by the throat, you don't mince words.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Literature #Throat

A story has been thought to its conclusion when it has taken its worst possible turn.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Taken #Stories #Worst

Today's difference between Russia and the United States is that in Russia everybody takes everybody else for a spy, and in the United States everybody takes everybody else for a criminal.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Russia #Differences #Spy

The savages don't have atom bombs.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Atoms #Savages #Bombs

You can't take back an act you were able to think.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Thinking #Able

A writer doesn’t solve problems. He allows them to emerge.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Writing #Problem #Solve

In a society which is structured the wrong way, piety has no effect.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Literature #Way #Piety

The rightful claim to dissent is an existential right of the individual.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Existentialism #Individual #Claims

For people who have no critical acumen, a state is a mythical entity, for those who think critically it is a rational fiction, created by man in order to facilitate human coexistence.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Men #Thinking #Order

Before anything else, we need a new age of Enlightenment. Our present political systems must relinquish their claims on truth, justice and freedom and have to replace them with the search for truth, justice, freedom and reason.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Birthday #Justice #Political

The only remedy against hunger is reasonable birth control.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Birth Control #Birth #Hunger

Whoever is content with the world, and who profits from its lack of justice, does not want to change it.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Uprising #Justice #Doe

Communism is a proposition to structure the world more reasonably, a proposition for changing the world. As such, we have to analyze it and, if we deem it reasonable, act upon it.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#World #Changing The World #Communism

It is easy to kill when you don't see your victim
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Easy #Victim

Someone who is about to die does not mourn the dead.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Doe #Literature #Mourn

So then learn to conquer your fear. This is the only art we have to master nowadays: to look at things without fear, and to fearlessly do right.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Inspirational #Art #Fear

Human life is beyond comprehension.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Life #Inspire #Comprehension

The freedom of each individual can only be the freedom of all.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#America #Literature #Individual

For a person who is dying only eternity counts.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Dying #Eternity #Persons

The difference between humans and wild animals is that humans pray before they commit murder.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Animal #Differences #Literature

Resistance at all cost is the most senseless act there is.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Cost #Literature #Resistance

Revolutions demand enormous sacrifices and, at the same time, create a new need to change the world again.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Sacrifice #Needs #World

The worst possible turn can not be programmed. It is caused by coincidence.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Literature #Coincidence #Worst

Pretend to be dumb, that's the only way to reach old age.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Birthday #Stupid #Dumb

Today's Communism can survive only if it abandons the myth of an infallible party, if it continues to think, and if it becomes democratic.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Party #Thinking #Hymns

A major power can afford a military debacle only when it looks like a political victory.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Military #Political #Victory

A story is not finished, until it took the worst turn.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Stories #Worst #Turns

Everything that is necessary is also easy. You just have to accept it. And the most necessary, the most natural matter on this planet is death.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Literature #Matter #Easy

That there is also freedom in captivity, only a prisoner can claim. Coming from a prison guard, this statement would be blasphemy.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Captivity #Would Be #Prison

To make the essence of man visible in the exposure is the highest art of photography.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Photography #Art #Men

Truth is always a delusion.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Literature #Truth Is #Delusion

I am a man, and God is hiding from us humans. We are unable to see Him, we can only search for Him
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Men #Hiding #Humans

It is only in love and murder that we still remain sincere.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Murder #Sincere #Stills

We are not cave dwellers anymore, we live in the age of technology. When someone needs a car, he does not need to build it. He can buy it. When someone needs a murder, he himself does not need to kill. He can order it.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Technology #Order #Car

What the world needs is not redemption from sin but redemption from hunger and oppression; it has no need to pin its hopes upon Heaven, it has everything to hope for from this earth.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Heaven #Needs #Redemption

He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Reality #Paradoxical

People like us who are on their last leg can only understand comedies.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#People #Legs #Lasts

We do not consider patriotism desirable if it contradicts civilized behavior.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Behavior #Civilized #Nationalism

There is a moment when nothing can be wiped out and left behind any more, when there is only reality and reality is horrifying.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Reality #Moments #Left Behind

Man is imperfect. The reality he creates is always endangered by man.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Reality #Men #Imperfect

Power is paradoxical.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Power #Paradoxical

Without tolerance, our world turns into hell.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Our World #Tolerance #Hell

Only the freedom of mind can prevent the state from becoming totalitarian and from issuing totalitarian demands.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Mind #Becoming #Demand

Above all, be suspicious of your fatherland. Nobody is more inclined to become a murderer than a fatherland.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Murderer #Fatherland

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Hands #Political #Expediency

Nothing that has been thought can ever be taken back
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Taken

The problems of all of humanity can only be solved by all of humanity
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Humanity #Problem

It is inhuman to continue a war which could easily be ended
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#War #Inhuman

There are thoughts we must not think
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Thinking

The evolution of humans can not only be seen as the grand total of their wars; it is also defined by the evolution of the human mind and the development of the human consciousness.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#War #Mind #Development

World history is tragic.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#World #Tragic #World History

Who sows fear, reaps weapons.
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#Weapons #Reap

This inhuman world has to become more humane. But how?
-- Friedrich Durrenmatt

#World #Humane #Inhuman