Friedrich Durrenmatt Quotes

There are risks which are not acceptable: the destruction of humanity is one of them.

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

It is easy to kill when you don't see your victim.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Everything in the world can be changed, my dear Florestan, but the human being.

The only remedy against hunger is reasonable birth control.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

One does not set fire to a world which is already lost.

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

Resistance at all cost is the most senseless act there is.

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

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand.

A story has been thought through to the end when it has taken the worst possible turn.

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

World history is tragic.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

The freedom of each individual can only be the freedom of all.

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.

Reality can be only partially attacked by logic.

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

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.

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

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.

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

For a person who is dying only eternity counts.

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

It is inhuman to continue a war which could easily be ended.

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

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

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

Justice is horrible.

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

Without tolerance, our world turns into hell.

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

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

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

There are thoughts we must not think.

Nothing that has been thought can ever be taken back.

He had read von Lambert's book on terrorism, there were two pages devoted to the Arab resistance movement, von Lambert refused to call them terrorists, which didn't preclude, and he had emphasized this, that nonterrorists were also capable of atrocities, Auschwitz, for instance, was not the work of terrorists but of state employees ...

Human life is beyond comprehension.

Truth is always a delusion.

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