Byung-Chul Han Quotes

Following Foucault, we may define the art of life as a practice of suicide, of giving oneself to death, of depsychologizing oneself, of playing.

It is a sign of sovereignty to risk one's life, that is, to turn life into a game.

Sovereignty, the freedom unto death, is threatening to a society that is organized around work and production.

Capitalism dislikes silence.

Capitalism lacks narrativity.

In contrast to festivals, events do not create community.

Silent listening unites a people and creates community without communication.

When we subordinate rest to work, we ignore the divine.

Sabbath rest does not follow creation; it brings creation to completion.

Today, tattoos lack symbolic power. All they do is point toward the uniqueness of the bearer. The body is neither a ritual stage nor a surface of projection; rather, it is an advertising space.

Rituals are processes of embodiment and bodily performances. In them, the valid order and values of a community are physically experienced and solidified.

The 'intense life' advertised by the neoliberal regime is in truth simply a life of intense consumption.

Every religious practice is an exercise in attention. A temple is the highest degree of attention.

Those who devote themselves to rituals must ignore themselves. Rituals produce a distance from the self, a self-transcendence.

*Rituals are also symbolic practices... in the sense that they bring people together to create an alliance, a wholeness, a community."