Friedrich Durrenmatt Quotes

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

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.

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

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand

Humor is the mask of wisdom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

The savages don't have atom bombs.

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

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

Without tolerance, our world turns into hell.

For a person who is dying only eternity counts.

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

He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Human life is beyond comprehension.

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

Truth is always a delusion.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

The only remedy against hunger is reasonable birth control.

World history is tragic.

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

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

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.

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

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