Friedrich Durrenmatt quotes:

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.

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Human life is beyond comprehension.

The savages don't have atom bombs.

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

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

The only remedy against hunger is reasonable birth control.

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

Truth is always a delusion.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

For a person who is dying only eternity counts.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality.

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

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

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

Power is paradoxical.

World history is tragic.

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.

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.

Who sows fear, reaps weapons.

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.

Humor is the mask of wisdom.

Without tolerance, our world turns into hell.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Nothing that has been thought can ever be taken back

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.

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

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 inhuman to continue a war which could easily be ended

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

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

What concerns everyone can only be resolved by everyone.

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

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

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.

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

There are thoughts we must not think

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Rome has betrayed itself. It knew the truth and chose violence, it knew humaneness and it chose tyranny.

Every work of art depicts an aspect of 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.

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.

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