Byung-Chul Han Quotes

Eros conquers depression.

Catastrophic fatality abruptly switches over into salvation.

Eros, erotic desire, conquers depression. It delivers us from the inferno of the same to the utopia, indeed utopia, of the wholly other.

Eros and depression are opposites.

Depression is a narcissistic malady.

However, the disappearance of domination does not entail freedom. Instead, it makes freedom and constraint coincide. Thus, the achievement-subject gives itself over to compulsive freedom--that is, to the free constraint of maximizing achievement. Excess work and performance escalate into auto-exploitation.

Disciplinary society is still governed by no. Its negativity produces madmen and criminals. In contrast, achievement society creates depressives and losers.

Twenty-first-century society is no longer a disciplinary society, but rather an achievement society [Leistungsgesellshaft].

Time begins to emit a scent when it gains duration; when it is given a narrative or deep tension; when it gains depth and breadth, even space.

Information has no scent.

Historical time knows no lasting present.

Full of gods means full of meaning, full of narration. The world becomes readable, like a picture.

The haste of day rules over the night as empty form.

Promising, committment, and fidelity, for instance, are genuinely temporal practices.

If things are deprived of memory, they become information or commodities. They are pushed into a time-free, ahistorical place.