
"On Knowledge of the World"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)
Living in Truth (1986), The Power of the Powerless
Context: The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better... Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions.
"On Knowledge of the World"
Men and Manners: Sketches and Essays (1852)
Source: Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights (1926), Ch. VII, Natural Right, § 35, p. 76.
“One only honours what one conquers or defends.”
Man schätzt überhaupt nur das, was man erobert oder verteidigt.
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)
Source: Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography
Letter to Archbishop J J Degenhardt, printed on rear cover of Eugen Drewermann, Worum es eigentlich geht. Protokoll einer Verurteilung (1992)
Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), V
Context: A dream! What is a dream? And is not our life a dream? I will say more. Suppose that this paradise will never come to pass (that I understand), yet I shall go on preaching it. And yet how simple it is: in one day, in one hour everything could be arranged at once! The chief thing is to love others like yourself, that's the chief thing, and that's everything; nothing else is wanted — you will find out at once how to arrange it all. And yet it's an old truth which has been told and retold a billion times — but it has not formed part of our lives! The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness — that is what one must contend against. And I shall. If only everyone wants it, it can be arranged at once.
“One shouldn't learn more than what one absolutely needs against life.”
Half-Truths and One-And-A-Half Truths (1976)
Spoken by Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy in the Law & Order episode Vaya Con Dios.
Law & Order
Scientific Study of So-Called Psychical Processes in the Higher Animals (1906).
Source: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living