“On the other hand, what is really irrational and what truly cannot be explained is not evil but, contrarily, the good.”
Kaddish for a Child Not Born (1990)
Original
... mert ami valóban irracionális, az nem a rossz, ellenkezőleg: a jó.
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Imre Kertész 61
Hungarian writer 1929–2016Related quotes
“Yes, this is what is good: to forgive evil. There is no other good.”
Sí, eso es el bien: perdonar el mal. No hay etro bien.
Voces (1943)
“Definition of Good and Evil: Good is what you like. Evil is what you don't like.”
The Devil's Notebook (1992)
“But just what this good patriotism is, no one explains.”
Patriotism, or Peace? http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism,_or_Peace%3F (1896), translated by Nathan Haskell Dole
Variant:
I have already several times expressed the thought that in our day the feeling of patriotism is an unnatural, irrational, and harmful feeling, and a cause of a great part of the ills from which mankind is suffering, and that, consequently, this feeling – should not be cultivated, as is now being done, but should, on the contrary, be suppressed and eradicated by all means available to rational men. Yet, strange to say – though it is undeniable that the universal armaments and destructive wars which are ruining the peoples result from that one feeling – all my arguments showing the backwardness, anachronism, and harmfulness of patriotism have been met, and are still met, either by silence, by intentional misinterpretation, or by a strange unvarying reply to the effect that only bad patriotism (Jingoism or Chauvinism) is evil, but that real good patriotism is a very elevated moral feeling, to condemn which is not only irrational but wicked.
What this real, good patriotism consists in, we are never told; or, if anything is said about it, instead of explanation we get declamatory, inflated phrases, or, finally, some other conception is substituted for patriotism – something which has nothing in common with the patriotism we all know, and from the results of which we all suffer so severely.
Patriotism and Government http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Patriotism_and_Government (1900)
Context: Tell people that war is an evil, and they will laugh; for who does not know it? Tell them that patriotism is an evil, and most of them will agree, but with a reservation. "Yes," they will say, "wrong patriotism is an evil; but there is another kind, the kind we hold." But just what this good patriotism is, no one explains.
Source: Metaphysics: Concept and Problems
