Friedrich Durrenmatt Quotes

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

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.

The savages don't have atom bombs.

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.

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

He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Every work of art depicts an aspect of reality.

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

The only remedy against hunger is reasonable birth control.

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.

There are thoughts we must not think

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

Human life is beyond comprehension.

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.

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.

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

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.

For a person who is dying only eternity counts.

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.

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.

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.

Truth is always a delusion.

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.

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.

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

World history is tragic.

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.

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.