Friedrich Durrenmatt Quotes

Voltaire lighted a torch and gave to others the sacred flame. The light still shines and will as long as man loves liberty and seeks for truth.

As a writer, I am an intellectual. I believe in the ideals of the Enlightenment, I believe in the written word, in dialogue and in truth. I hate lies more than anything else. Most of the time I react by writing.

Every man has a right to his opinion, but no man has the right to be wrong in his facts.

North America is the country where reason and humanity will develop more rapidly than anywhere else.

Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge.

This then is the age of reason.

The power of the people and the power of reason are one.

I am aware that a philosopher's ideas are not subject to the judgment of ordinary persons, because it is his endeavour to seek the truth in all things, to the extent permitted to human reason by God.

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

Faith in reason was the foundation stone of the United States.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

Quotations are useful in periods of ignorance or obscurantist beliefs.

Over 5,000 years, states have made surprisingly consistent claims about their duties. They have promised to protect people from threats; promote their welfare; deliver justice and also, perhaps less obviously, uphold truth - originally truths about the cosmos, and more recently truths drawn from reason and knowledge.

I am an optimist, and I believe that people are inherently good and that if you give everyone a voice and freedom of expression, the truth and the good will outweigh the bad.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

If we reject science, we reject the common man.

The Islam Ataturk professed contained nothing contrary to reason and progress.

I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him act against the liberty of his fellow-men.

The long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only weapon against bad ideas is better ideas.

Only reason can convince us of those three fundamental truths without a recognition of which there can be no effective liberty: that what we believe is not necessarily good; and that all questions are open.

Neither truth, reason, nor justice consists in stubbornness of assertion, nor in the repetition of error.

Liberty Enlightening the World

The ideal of progress, freedom of thought, and the decline of ecclesiastical power go together.

In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.