Karl Jaspers Quotes

Rohde became more and more firmly bound to the bourgeois world, its institutions and accepted opinions. … The contrast between the two natures makes Rohde and Nietzsche exemplary representatives of two distinctive worlds. In their youth they both live in the realm of boundless possibilities and feel an affinity through the exuberance of their noble aspirations. Subsequently they go in opposite directions. Nietzsche remains young, leaving concrete reality as his task assumes existential import. Rohde grows old, bourgeois, stable, and skeptical. Hence courage is a fundamental trait in Nietzsche, plaintive self-irony in Rohde. … Rohde retained the interests but not the attitudes of his youth; he looked to the world of the Greeks for the object of his contemplation rather than the norm of obligation.

Je to rozdíl mezi politickou svobodou a politickou diktaturou, chápaný od doby Herodotovy jako rozdíl mezi Západem a Orientem (mezi řeckou svobodou a perskou despocií). Ale není už zpravidla na jednotlivcích, aby rozhodovali, jaké poměry mají vládnout. Jednotlivec se do nich rodí, štastně nebo neštastně; musí přejímat, co je zde a co je skutečné. Žádný jednotlivec a žádná skupina nemohou rázem - a také ne jen v jediné generaci – změnit tento předpoklad, bez něhož není život nás všech myslitelný.

My path was not the normal one of professors of philosophy. I did not intend to become a doctor of philosophy by studying philosophy (I am in fact a doctor of medicine) nor did I by any means, intend originally to qualify for a professorship by a dissertation on philosophy. To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet. Since my schooldays, however, I was guided by philosophical questions. Philosophy seemed to me the supreme, even the sole, concern of man. Yet a certain awe kept me from making it my profession.

Today war seems to have undergone a change of meaning, insofar as it is not a war of religion but a war of interests, not a war of conflicting cultures or civilizations but a war of national areas, not a war of human beings but a technical struggle of machines one against another and all against the non–combatant population.

Ale dnes svatozář kolem hlav států zmizela. Jsou to lidé a jsou odpovědni za své činy. Od té doby, co evropské národy začaly stavět své monarchy před soud a stínat jim hlavy, je úkolem národů kontrolovat své vůdce. Státní akty jsou zároveň osobní akty. Odpovídají za ně lidé jako jednotlivci.

felsefe yapmak ölmeyi öğrenmektir.

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

We are sorely deficient in talking with each other and listening to each other. We lack mobility, criticism and self-criticism. We incline to doctrinism. What makes it worse is that so many people do not really want to think. They want only slogans and obedience. They ask no questions and they give no answers, except by repeating drilled-in phrases. They can only assert and obey, neither probe nor apprehend. Thus they cannot be convinced, either. How shall we talk with people who will not go where others probe and think, where men seek independence in insight and conviction?

Metaphysical guilt is the lack of absolute solidarity with the human being as such — an indelible claim beyond morally meaningful duty. This solidarity is violated by my presence at a wrong or a crime. It is not enough that I cautiously risk my life to prevent it; if it happens, and I was there, and if I survive where the other is killed, I know from a voice within myself: I am guilty of being still alive.

عندما يكون الانسان واعيا بحريته وعياً حقيقيا ، فانه في الوقت نفسه يصبح مقتنعا بوجود الله ، فالله والحرية لا ينفصلان
الاسلام بين الشرق والغرب

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.

In time, this consciousness of risk remains the condition for increasing freedom. It excludes complete reliance on subjective certainty, forbids the generalization of the subjective commandment into a universal law, and bars fanaticism. Even in the certainty of the resolve, there must, in so far as it is translated into practical action, remain a certain margin of indetermination. There can be no subjective security. The pride of the absolute truth destroys in truththe world.

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

The vicious circle of dread of war which leads the nations to arm themselves for self-protection, with the result that bloated armaments ultimately lead to the war which they were intended to avert, can be broken in either of two conceivable ways. There might arise a unique world power, brought into being by the unification of all those now in possession of weapons, and equipped with the capacity to forbid the lesser and unarmed nations to make war. On the other hand, it may arise by the working of a fate to us still inscrutable which, out of ruin, will disclose a way towards the development of a new human being. To will the discovery of this way would be blind impotence, but those who do not wish to deceive themselves will be prepared for the possibility.

Filosofia se trădează pe sine atunci când degenerează în dogmatism, adică într-o ştiinţă fixată în formule, definitivă, completă. A face filozofie înseamnă a fi pe drum; în filozofie întrebările sunt mult mai importante decât răspunsurile, şi fiecare răspuns devine o nouă întrebare