German - Philosopher | May 10, 1903 - February 5, 1993
The simple truth of our finiteness is that we could, by whatever means, go on interminably only at the price of either losing the past and, therewith, our identity, or living only in the past and therefore without a real present. We cannot seriously wish either and thus not a physical enduring at that price.
Hans Jonas
TruthSimplePastLosingIdentity
It is a changing world because of the newcomers who keep arriving and who leave us behind. Trying to keep pace with them is doomed to inglorious failure, especially as the pace has quickened so much.
FailureWorldTryingLeaveChanging
As to each of us, the knowledge that we are here but briefly and a nonnegotiable limit is set to our expected time may even be necessary as the incentive to number our days and make them count.
KnowledgeTimeLimitDaysCountMay
Our duties and responsibilities as human beings must be shown to be so incontrovertible that even atheists must recognize them. There are ultimate taboos.
HumanMustHuman BeingsEvenOur
If man was the relative of animals, then animals were the relatives of man, and in degrees bearers of that inwardness of which man, the most advanced of their kin, is conscious in himself.
ManAnimalsRelativesMostRelative
Judaism and Christianity in themselves are distinctly separate entities, to be sure; but when considering their influence on Western thought, we must bear in mind that Christianity alone, or almost alone, transmitted the Jewish share, simply by what it contained of it in its own, original constitution.
AloneMindInfluenceThoughtBear
Unlike the interference of ordinary interest, power, or prejudice, which touches philosophy only at its outskirts and becomes at most a matter for philosophical tactics, the claim of revelation to the highest truth touches philosophy at its core and must affect its whole strategy.
TruthPowerStrategyPhilosophy
We do violence to the consciousness of a past age when we divide what was indivisible to it: the one sacred truth of the Christian creed.
AgeTruthPastChristianViolence
The will to set values and the power to make them law are jointly at the bottom of all operative norms. When linked to divine wisdom, this source of moral law is still in safe hands which man can trust.
WisdomPowerTrustManLawHands
Copyright © 2024 QuotesDict Hans Jonas quotes