Karl Jaspers Quotes

В творчестве Ницше нигде нет настоящего центра: главного произведе

When the titanic apparatus of the mass-order has been consolidated, the individual has to serve it, and must from time to time combine with his fellows in order to renovate it. If he wants to make his livelihood by intellectual activity, he will find it very difficult to do this except by satisfying the needs of the many. He must give currency to something that will please the crowd. They seek satisfaction in the pleasures of the table, eroticism, self-assertion; they find no joy in life if one of these gratifications be curtailed. They also desire some means of self-knowledge. They desire to be led in such as way that they can fancy themselves leaders. Without wishing to be free, they would fain be accounted free. One who would please their taste must produce what is really average and commonplace, though not frankly styled such; must glorify or at least justify something as universally human. Whatever is beyond their understanding is uncongenial to them. One who would influence the masses must have recourse to the art of advertisement. The clamour of puffery is to-day requisite even for an intellectual movement. The days of quiet and unpretentious activity seem over and done with. You must keep yourself in the public eye, give lectures, make speeches, arouse a sensation. Yet the mass-apparatus lacks true greatness of representation, lacks solemnity.

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

Je však nesmyslné morálně obviňovat nějaký národ jako celek. Není národního charakteru v tom smyslu, že by jej sdílel každý jednotlivý příslušník národa. Existuje ovšem společenství jazyka, mravů, obyčejů a původu. Ale v něm jsou zároveň možné tak velké rozdíly, že lidé, kteří hovoří touže řečí, si v ní přece mohou zůstávat tak cizí, jako by vůbec nepatřili k témuž národu.

Morálně lze vždy posuzovat jen jednotlivce, nikdy ne kolektiv.

The general fellowship of our human situation has been rendered even more dubious than before, inasmuch as, though the old ties of caste have been loosened, a new restriction of the individual to some prescribed status in society is manifest. Less than ever, perhaps, is it possible for a man to transcend the limitations imposed by his social origins.

Německo bylo za nacistického režimu káznicí. Vina spočívající v tom, že jsme se octli v této káznici, je politická vina. Jsou-li však jednou dveře káznice zavřeny, nemůže být káznice zevnitř otevřena. O zodpovědnosti a vině zavřených, která pak ještě zůstává nebo vzniká, je nutno uvažovat vždy s otázkou, co lze v takové situaci činit.

Činit všechny vězně odpovědnými za hanebné činy dozorců je zřejmě nespravedlivé.

Three things are required at a university: professional training, education of the whole man, research. For the university is simultaneously a professional school, a cultural center and a research institute. People have tried to force the university to choose between these three possibilities. They have asked what it is that we really expect the university to do. Since, so they say, it cannot do everything it ought to decide upon one of these three alternatives. It was even suggested that the university as such be dissolved, to be replaced by three special types of school: institutes for professional training, institutes for general education possibly involving a special staff, and research institutes. In the idea of the university, however, these three are indissolubly united. One cannot be cut off from the others without destroying the intellectual substance of the university, and without at the same time crippling itself. All three are factors of a living whole. By isolating them, the spirit of the university perishes.

We are more than all our knowledge. What we know confronts an infinitely encompassing unknown. The world is a mystery, and each of us is a mystery to himself.

Then the exception would be as if he did not exist at all.

The limits of science have always been the source of bitter disappointment when people expected something from science that it was not able to provide. Take the following examples: a man without faith seeking to find in science a substitute for his faith on which to build his life; a man unsatisfied by philosophy seeking an all-embracing universal truth in science; a spiritually shallow person growing aware of his own futility in the course of engaging in the endless reflections imposed by science. In every one of these cases, science begins as an object of blind idolatry and ends up as an object of hatred and
contempt. Disenchantment inevitably follows upon these and similar misconceptions. One question remains: What value can science possibly have when its limitations have become so painfully clear?

Je třeba rozlišovat dvojí: vědomí viny a uznání nějaké instituce na světě jako soudce.

When language is used without true significance, it loses its purpose as a means of communication and becomes an end in itself.

For one wishing to philosophize, it is of particular, indeed of crucial importance to ascertain the difference between the object cognition that is achieved in the sciences and the transcending thought that characterizes philosophy......which transcend[s] the limits of the knowable and of the world as a whole, so that through these limits we become aware of the phenomenality of empirical existence and hence of the Comprehensive nature of being, thus entering into the area of faith.

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.

ყოველგვარი ახსნისა და შესაძლებელი ინტერპრეტაციის მიღმა არის არა არარა, არამედ ტრანსცენდენციის ყოფიერება