Alexander Carmele

“We are like books. Most people only see our cover, the minority read only the introduction, many people believe the critics. Few will know our content”
― Émile Zola

“People reasoning on essences may sometimes substitute certitude for probability, even very great probability. But we know nothing about essences and accordingly lose our certitude.”
― Vilfredo Pareto, The mind and society

“Existentialism is not so much an atheism in the sense that it would exhaust itself attempting to demonstrate the nonexistence of God; rather, it affirms that even if God were to exist, it would make no difference—that is our point of view. It is not that we believe that God exists, but we think that the real problem is not one of his existence; what man needs is to rediscover himself and to comprehend that nothing can save him from himself, not even valid proof of the existence of God. In this sense, existentialism is optimistic. It is a doctrine of action, and it is only in bad faith—in confusing their own despair with ours—that Christians are able to assert that we are “without hope.”
― Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism

“Zwischen scheinbar harmloser Ideologie und ihren radikalen Anwendungen lassen sich keine klaren Grenzen ziehen. Deshalb muss die Aufklärung an der Wurzel des Übels ansetzen. Es rächt sich, wenn man den Glauben an ... respektiert und zugleich hofft, dass niemand diesen Glauben missbrauchen oder radikal interpretieren wird”
― Hubert Schleichert, Wie man mit Fundamentalisten diskutiert, ohne den Verstand zu verlieren : Anleitung zum subversiven Denken