Friedrich Durrenmatt Quotations

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 only remedy against hunger is reasonable birth control.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Nothing that has been thought can ever be taken back

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

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

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

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

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

For a person who is dying only eternity counts.

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

The problems of all of humanity can only be solved by all of humanity

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Without tolerance, our world turns into hell.

He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality.

There are thoughts we must not think

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

Power is paradoxical.

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

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

The savages don't have atom bombs.

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

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

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.

Truth is always a delusion.

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.

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

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.

Human life is beyond comprehension.

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.

Who sows fear, reaps weapons.

World history is tragic.

What concerns everyone can only be resolved by everyone.

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

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.

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

Every work of art depicts an aspect of reality.

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

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

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.

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

Humor is the mask of wisdom.

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

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

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