Quote collection
282 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"A theology which is not based on revelation as a given reality but treats God as an idea would be as mad as a zoology which is no longer sure of the physical, tangible existence of animals."
"Solitude is the human condition in which I keep myself company. Loneliness comes about when I am alone without being able to split up into the two-in-one, without being able to keep myself company."
"The presence of others who see what we see and hear what we hear assures us of the reality of the world and ourselves."
"Equality...is the result of human organization. We are not born equal."
"Few girls are as well shaped as a good horse."
"We all carry fault within."
"Manipulations of opinion, insofar as they are inspired by well-defined interests, have limited goals; their effect, however, if they happen to touch upon an issue of authentic concern, is no longer subject to their control and may easily produce consequences they never foresaw or intended."
"What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations ... is its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by one's own efforts."
"Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity."
"in addition to the conditions under which life is given to man on earth, and partly out of them, men constantly create their own, self-made conditions, which, their human origins notwithstanding, possess the same conditioning power as natural things. whatever touches or enters into a sustained relationship with human life immediately assumes the character of a condition of human existence. this is why men, no matter what they do, are always conditioned beings. whatever enters the human world of its own accord or is drawn into it by human effort becomes part of the human condition."
"Immortality is what nature possesses without effort and without anybody's assistance, and immortality is what the mortals must therefore try to achieve if they want to live up to the world into which they were born, to live up to the things which surround them and to whose company they are admitted for a short while."
"One must think with the body and the soul or not think at all."
"Bureaucracy, the rule of nobody."
"Man's chief moral deficiency appears to be not his indiscretions but his reticence."
"The Third World is not a reality but an ideology."
"And the distinction between violent and non-violent action is that the former is exclusively bent upon the destruction of the old, and the latter is chiefly concerned with the establishment of something new."
"Fear is an emotion indispensable for survival."
"The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility - of being unable to undo what one has done - is the faculty of forgiving."
"No punishment has ever possessed enough power of deterrence to prevent the commission of crimes. On the contrary, whatever the punishment, once a specific crime has appeared for the first time, its reappearance is more likely than its initial emergence could ever have been."
"Conscience is the anticipation of the fellow who awaits you if and when you come home."