Quotes from Friedrich Durrenmatt

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

The savages don't have atom bombs.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

Power is paradoxical.

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

For a person who is dying only eternity counts.

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.

Nothing that has been thought can ever be taken back.

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.

Religion and political expediency go beautifully hand in hand.

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

Human life is beyond comprehension.