Karl Jaspers Quotes

The would-be climber must be able to make himself liked ... please his superiors — avoid showing independence except in those matters wherein independence is expected of him by his chiefs... the winners in the race have qualities which disincline them to allow others to be their true selves. Hence the winners snub all those who aim at adequate self-expression, speaking of them as pretentious, eccentric, biased, unpractical, and measuring their achievements by insincere standards.

Man is always something more than what he knows of himself. He is not what he is simply once and for all, but is a process...

Even the best institutions at the university are apt to deteriorate and to become distorted. Thus the very translation of thought into teachable form tends to impoverish its intellectual vitality. Once intellectual achievement is admitted into the body of accepted learning those achievements tend to assume an air of finality. Thus, it is merely a matter of convention at what point one subject ends and the other begins. It is possible, moreover, that an excellent scholar may not be able to find a place for himself within the established departmental divisions. A mediocre scholar may be preferred to him simply because his work fits into the traditional scheme. Any institution tends to consider itself an end in itself.

Az ember alapjában véve több annál, mint amit megtudhatunk róla.

Ona věta „To je vaše vina!“ může znamenat:

Jste odpovědni za činy režimu, který jste trpěli - zde jde o naši politickou vinu.

Je vaše vina, že jste nadto tento režim podporovali a pomáhali jej vytvářet – v tom spočívá naše morální vina.

Je vaše vina, že jste nečinně přihlíželi, když se páchaly zločiny – zde se naznačuje metafyzická vina.

Tyto tři věty pokládám za pravdivé, třebaže jen první z nich - větu o politické odpovědnosti – lze vyslovit bez okolků a třebaže jen ona je zcela správna, zatímco druhá a třetí – věty o morální a metafyzické vině - se v juristické podobě stávají jako výpovědi, které jsou bez lásky, nepravdivými.
len jste se na oněch zločinech, tedy jste sami zločinci.

Věta „To je vaše vina“ může dále znamenat: Podíleli jste se na oněch zločinech, tedy jste sami zločinci. To je, pokud jde o převážnou většinu Němců, zřejmě mylné.

Konečně může tato věta znamenat: Jste jako národ méněcenní, bez důstojnosti, zločinní, jste vyvrhelové lidstva, lišíte se od všech ostatních národů. – To je myšlení a hodnocení v pojmech kolektivů, které svou subsumací každého jedince pod toto všeobecné jsou radikálně falešné a samy o sobě nelidské, ať už se děje v dobrém, nebo špatném smyslu.

To philosophize is to learn to die – philosophizing is a soaring up to the Godhead – the knowledge of Being as Being.

“Philosophy and Science”, World Review Magazine (March 1950).

The battle is a collision of power, of gods themselves: man is only a pawn in these terrible games, or their scene, or their medium; but man's greatness consists precisely in his act of becoming such medium. By this act he becomes imbued with a soul and identical with the powers.

V klidných dobách se skoro zapomnělo, že se mezi lidmi rozhoduje násilím, nedohodnou-li se, a že veškerý státní řád je krocením tohoto násilí, ale takovým, při němž násilí zůstává – uvnitř jako vynucování práva, navenek jako válka.

Tam, kde s válkou nastupuje situace násilí, přestává právo. My Evropané jsme se snažili udržet ještě i později v platnosti zbytek práva a zákona mezinárodněprávními ustanoveními, která platí i ve válce a která byla posléze uložena do Haagských a Ženevských úmluv. Zdá se, že to bylo marné.

Imminent seems the collapse of that which for millennium has constituted man's universe. The new world which has arisen as an apparatus for supply of the necessaries of life compels everything and everyone to serve it. It annihilates whatever it has no place for person seems to be going undergoing absorption into that which is nothing more than a means to an end, into that which is devoid of purpose of significance.

Tragedy occurs whenever awareness exceeds power; and particularly where awareness of a major need exceeds the power to satisfy it.

Hitlerovo jednání bylo od počátku zaměřeno proti jakékoli možnosti smíření. Existovalo jen vítězství, nebo zkáza.

Man, if he is to remain man, must advance by way of consciousness. There is no road leading backward. ... We can no longer veil reality from ourselves by renouncing self-consciousness without simultaneously excluding ourselves from the historical course of human existence.

In old days the plastic arts, music, and poesy were so germane to man in his totality that his Transcendence plainly manifest in them. ... What is to-day obvious to all is a decay in the essence of art. ... the opposition to man's true nature as man.

Truth and reality split apart.

The masses are our masters; and for every one who looks facts in the face his existence has become dependent on them, so that the thought of them must control his doings, his cares, and his duties. Even an articulated mass always tends to become unspiritual and inhuman. It is life without existence, superstitions without faith. It may stamp all flat; it is disinclined to tolerate independence and greatness, but prone to constrain people to become as automatic as ants.