Zitate

Edmund Burke | But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?

"But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths."

Edmund Burke

Richard David Prech | If I may be completely honest

"If I may be completely honest, I always think what an accident it was that this woman became Foreign Minister. Under normal conditions, she wouldn't even have gotten an internship at the Foreign Office. That someone with this moral fervor tries to explain to a class representative of a world power, a cultural nation, what Western values are, defines them as systemic rivals and virtually paints an escalation scenario on the wall, a values-led foreign policy that is in fact a confrontation-led foreign policy, instead of simply baking small rolls and saying to herself: 'As long as we are economically successful in Germany, the Chinese will take us seriously, lock, stock and barrel.'"

Richard David Prech

Konrad Lorenz | to throw your favorite hypothesis overboard every day

"We have to acknowledge that most of us love their hypotheses, and, as I once said, it is a painful exercise, but one that keeps us young and healthy like morning gymnastics, to throw your favorite hypothesis overboard every day."

Konrad Lorenz

Carl Gustav Jung | certain views which others find inadmissible

"As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know. Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible."

Carl Gustav Jung

Dr. Markus Krall | Every generation has been exposed to socialist seduction

"Every generation has been exposed to socialist seduction in ever new disguises. And always a part falls for the totalitarian ideologists. And again and again there is a confrontation between humanity and totalitarianism. Also today. #EcoSocialism"

Dr. Markus Krall

Lysander Spooner | Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice

"Majorities, as such, afford no guarantees for justice. They are men of the same nature as minorities. They have the same passions for fame, power, and money, as minorities; and are liable and likely to be equally - perhaps more than equally, because more boldly - rapacious, tyrannical and unprincipled, if intrusted with power."

Lysander Spooner

Marcus Aurelius | What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance

"If anyone can refute me—show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective—I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance."

Marcus Aurelius

C.S. Lewis | Of all tyrannies

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals."

C.S. Lewis

Ingolfur Blühdorn | Politics is losing ground dramatically to the power of the markets

"It has long been obvious in the Western tribal countries of democracy that the promises inherent in this concept will probably remain unfulfilled: Politics is losing ground dramatically to the power of the markets; supposedly democratic systems are firmly in the hands of powerfully organized interests and have less and less to do with popular sovereignty - if there ever was any. Social inequality and the disenfranchisement and reification of citizens as mere administrative objects or human resources are advancing inexorably - though every step of disenfranchisement is communicated as emancipatory gain."

Ingolfur Blühdorn

Jacques Élisée Reclus | the policy of hatred always breeds hatred

"History permits the well-founded observation that the policy of hatred always breeds hatred and fatally complicates the general situation, if not leads to final ruin. How many nations perished in this way. Oppressors as well as oppressed! Should we also be doomed? I hope not! And I owe this hope also to the anarchist thinking, which penetrates day by day more and more into the light and renews the human initiative."

Jacques Élisée Reclus

Howard Zinn | Our problem is civil obedience

"As soon as you say the topic is civil disobedience, you are saying our problem is civil disobedience. That is not our problem.... Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is the numbers of people all over the world who have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. And our problem is that scene in All Quiet on the Western Front where the schoolboys march off dutifully in a line to war. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world, in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem."

Howard Zinn

Coudenhove-Kalergi | Today, democracy is a façade of plutocracy

"The form of constitution that replaced feudalism and absolutism was democracy; the form of government, plutocracy. Today, democracy is a façade of plutocracy: since nations would not tolerate a pure form of plutocracy, they were granted nominal powers, while the real power rests in the hands of plutocrats. In republican as well as monarchical democracies, the statesmen are puppets, the capitalists are the puppeteers; they dictate the guidelines of politics, rule through purchase the public opinion of the voters, and through professional and social relationships, the ministers. Instead of the feudal structure of society, the plutocratic stepped in; birth is no more the decisive factor for social rank, but income is. Today's plutocracy is mightier than yesterday's aristocracy: because nobody is above it but the state, which is its tool and helper's helper. When there was still true blood nobility, the system of aristocracy by birth was fairer than that of the moneyed aristocracy today: because then the ruling caste had a sense of responsibility, culture and tradition, whereas the class that rules today is barren of feelings of responsibility, culture or tradition."

Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi

The Analyst | Die Schäfchen gehen nirgendwo hin. Sie mögen meine Welt

"Die Schäfchen gehen nirgendwo hin. Sie mögen meine Welt. Sie wollen diese Sentimentalität nicht. Sie wollen weder Freiheit noch Selbstbestimmung. Sie wollen kontrolliert werden. Sie sehnen sich nach dem Komfort der Gewissheit. Und das bedeutet, ihr zwei, zurück in euren Kapseln, bewusstlos und allein, genau wie sie."

The Analyst (Matrix Resurrections (2021))

Jason Evert | they overlook their power to turn our hearts

"When a woman dresses modestly, I can take her seriously as a woman because she doesn’t look like she’s begging for attention. She knows that she’s worth discovering. Such humility is radiant. Unfortunately, many women are so preoccupied with turning men’s heads that they overlook their power to turn our hearts."

Jason Evert

Nikolaus Kopernikus | So far as hypotheses are concerned

"So far as hypotheses are concerned, let no one expect anything certain from astronomy, which cannot furnish it, lest he accept as the truth ideas conceived for another purpose, and depart from this study a greater fool than when he entered it."

Nikolaus Kopernikus

Charlie Chaplin | As for politics, I’m an anarchist

"As for politics, I’m an anarchist. I hate governments and rules and fetters. Can’t stand caged animals. People must be free."

Charlie Chaplin

Roland Baader | It is … a naivety that cannot be excused by anything to believe

"It is ... a naivety that cannot be excused by anything to believe that a state can be total in the economic sphere without being so at the same time in the political and spiritual sphere ...." ... Democracy and socialism are not a tautology (à la Oskar),but radical, mutually exclusive opposites. Democracy is a method of limiting and controlling power. Socialism, on the other hand, always denies the individual freedom of choice of individuals over their economic preferences and life goals (supposedly in favor of the general public, the collective); thus socialism always assigns sovereignty over the decisive existential forces and life motivations to the state or a party or political cliques, and thus socialism is never a system or method for limiting power, but always and everywhere pseudo-moral justification for patronizing life, carte blanche for cynically moralizing unrestrained power."

Roland Baader

Julian Assange | Every time we witness an injustice

"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love. In a modern economy it is impossible to seal oneself off from injustice."

Julian Assange

Martin Luther | You can’t stop a flock of birds from flying over your head

"You can't stop a flock of birds from flying over your head. But you can prevent it from nesting in your hair"

Martin Luther

Dr. Jörn Berninger | politically or medially predetermined thought prison

"There are always events that are played up in the media and lead to more and more people subscribing to the opinion given from the outside. This in turn leads them to build up beliefs that become a thought prison. If one is stuck in such a politically or medially predetermined thought prison, one begins to identify with it and hardly finds a way out. You have to look for a loophole to break out of this thought prison."

Dr. Jörn Berninger

Dr. Markus Krall | After 3 years of propaganda is apparent

"After 3 years of propaganda is apparent:
- Covid was just flu
- The mortality figures were fake
- Masks were useless
- Vaccination was useless and harmful
- School closures were useless
- The high priests of the Covid cult are corrupt profiteers
What now?"

Dr. Markus Krall

Michael Wendler | We are living at the peak of the time of the false world

"We are living at the peak of the time of the false world. That's why being real gets you shunned. Why speaking truth gets you scorned and banned. Society is at the tipping point of the height of illussion. It takes serious courage to be real right now. Please be brave!"

Michael Wendler

Ludwig Feuerbach | What man does not recognize from himself

"What man does not recognize from himself, he does not recognize at all."

Ludwig Feuerbach

Johann Gottlieb Fichte | will never rise to idealism

"A character flabby by nature, or slackened and bent by mental bondage to learned luxury and vanity, will never rise to idealism."

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Winston Churchill | There is only published opinion

"There is no such thing as public opinion. There is only published opinion."

Winston Churchill

Niklas Luhmann | the media don’t depict reality, they create it

"Sure, the media don't depict reality, they create it! And that's why we need counter-publicity!"

Niklas Luhmann

Bertrand Russel | I should like to say two things

"I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say. The moral thing I should wish to say…I should say love is wise, hatred is foolish. In this world which is getting more closely and closely interconnected we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way and if we are to live together and not die together we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet."

Bertrand Russell

Machiavelli | He who has once begun to live by robbery

"He who has once begun to live by robbery will always find pretexts for seizing what belongs to others."

Machiavelli

Henry Louis Mencken | The urge to save humanity

"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. Power is what all messiahs really seek: not the chance to serve. This is true even of the pious brethren who carry the gospel to foreign parts."

Henry Louis Mencken

Rob Schneider | If you turn off the news

"If you turn off the news and talk to your neighbors, you'll find that our country is far more harmonious than you're being told"

Rob Schneider