A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clear-sighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemerally of everything human. It is only this awareness that can breathe any greatness into an action. |
A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit. A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states. |
against its sense, its spirit. |
All respected domestic and international organizations agree that your demands are justified. Therefore I wish you strength, endurance, courage and fortunate decisions. |
Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not. |
Anyone who takes himself too seriously always runs the risk of looking ridiculous; anyone who can consistently laugh at himself does not. |
As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it. |
Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have -- by disrupting that order -- a way of surprising. |
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. |
For 15 years the Government of Burma (Myanmar) has refused to implement recommendations made by the UN and the situation is getting worse, |
For 15 years the Government of Burma has refused to implement recommendations made by the UN and the situation is getting worse, ... In fact, the situation in Burma is much more severe compared to other countries in which the Security Council has chosen to act in recent years. |
fundamental importance for our future in Europe. |
Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole. |
He tries to explain why man behaves most improbably, strangely, at variance with his nature, how it is possible for instance that a calm, rather neutral petty bourgeois is all of a sudden capable of commanding a concentration camp, burning to death or gassing thousands of people, and afterwards returning to his clerk's life as if nothing happened, |
Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don't, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you. |