He was one of Switzerland’s most important contemporary writers; in fact, he is perhaps the most important and successful German-language playwright after World War II. He is also one of the most important European dramatists to write since the Second World War.
However, he has been largely neglected in the English-speaking world.
(1921-1990)
– Friedrich Durrenmatt Quotes –
Revolutions demand enormous sacrifices and, at the same time, create a new need to change the world again.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
It is surely easier to confess a murder over a cup of coffee than in front of a jury.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
Man is imperfect. The reality he creates is always endangered by man.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
For a person who is dying only eternity counts.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
Nothing that has been thought can ever be taken back.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
We do not consider patriotism desirable if it contradicts civilized behavior.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
I am a man, and God is hiding from us humans. We are unable to see Him, we can only search for Him.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
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.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
News reports don’t change the world. Only facts change it, and those have already happened when we get the news.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
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.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
Resistance at all cost is the most senseless act there is.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
It is easy to kill when you don’t see your victim.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
Only the freedom of mind can prevent the state from becoming totalitarian and from issuing totalitarian demands.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
You can’t take back an act you were able to think.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
Human life is beyond comprehension.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
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.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
There are risks which are not acceptable: the destruction of humanity is one of them.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
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.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
A story has been thought through to the end when it has taken the worst possible turn.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
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.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
The world is bad but not without hope. It is only hopeless when you look at it from an ideal viewpoint.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
Everything in the world can be changed, my dear Florestan, but the human being.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
A major power can afford a military debacle only when it looks like a political victory.
~ Friedrich Durrenmatt
