Quote collection
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"I have found that good taste, oddly enough, plays an important role in politics. Why is it like that? The most probable reason is that good taste is a visible manifestation of human sensibility toward the world, environment, people."
"There can be no doubt that distrust of words is less harmful than unwarranted trust in them."
"Technological measures are important, but equally important is... a consciousness of the commonality of all living beings and an emphasis on shared responsibility."
"When a man has his heart in the right place and good taste, he can not only do well in politics but is even predetermined for it. If someone is modest and does not yearn for power, he is certainly not ill-equipped to engage in politics; on the contrary, he belongs there. What is needed in politics is not the ability to lie but rather the sensibility to know when, where, how and to whom to say things."
"The experience I'm talking about has given me one certainty: the salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility. Without a global revolution in human consciousness, nothing will change for the better, and the catastrophe toward which this world is headed will be unavoidable."
"If the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man."
"The exercise of power is determined by thousands of interactions between the world of the powerful and that of the powerless, all the more so because these worlds are never divided by a sharp line: everyone has a small part of himself in both."
"The deeper the experience of an absence of meaning - in other words, of absurdity - the more energetically meaning is sought."
"The world is not divided into two types of being, one superior and the other merely surrounding it. Being, nature, the universe - they are all one infinitely complex and mysterious metaorganism of which we are but a part, though a unique one."
"The hope of the world lies in the rehabilitation of the living human being, not just the body but also the soul."
"Every consession gives rise to further concessions, we cannot back down, because behind us there is only an abyss, we must keep our promises and demand that they be kept."
"Planetary democracy does not yet exist but our global civilization is already preparing a place for it. It is the very Earth we inhabit linked with Heaven above us. Only in this setting can the mutuality and the commonality of the human race be newly created with reverence and gratitude for that which transcends each of us and all of us together."
"But if I were to say who influenced me most, then I'd say Franz Kafka. And his works were always anchored in the Central European region."
"Modern science kills God and takes his place on the vacant throne. Science is the sole legitimate arbiter of all relavent truth."
"It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly."
"Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance."
"The only lost cause is one we give up on before we enter the struggle."
"Courage means going against majority opinion in the name of the truth."
"I am convinced that we will never build a democratic state based on rule of law if we do not at the same time build a state that is-regardless of how unscientific this may sound to the ears of a political scientist-humane, moral, intellectual and spiritual, and cultural."
"Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not."