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

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

A story has been thought through to the end when it has taken the worst possible turn.
Friedrich Durrenmatt

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

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

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.
Friedrich Durrenmatt

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

Everything in the world can be changed, my dear Florestan, but the human being.
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

For a person who is dying only eternity counts.
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

Human life is beyond comprehension.
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

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

It is easy to kill when you don't see your victim.
Friedrich Durrenmatt

It is inhuman to continue a war which could easily be ended.
Friedrich Durrenmatt

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

Justice is horrible.
Friedrich Durrenmatt

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