Top 20 Carl Schmitt Quotes (2024 Update)

Carl Schmitt Quote: “Tell me who your enemy is, and I will tell you who you are.”

1. “Tell me who your enemy is, and I will tell you who you are.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.”

2. “The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything. In the exception the power of real life breaks through the crust of a mechanism that has become torpid by repetition.”

3. “The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything. In the exception the power of real life breaks through the crust of a mechanism that has become torpid by repetition.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”

4. “Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion.”

5. “The essence of liberalism is negotiation, a cautious half measure, in the hope that the definitive dispute, the decisive bloody battle, can be transformed into a parliamentary debate and permit the decision to be suspended forever in an everlasting discussion.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.”

6. “All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The metaphysical image that a definite epoch forges of the world has the same structure as what the world immediately understands to be appropriate as a form of its political organization.”

7. “The metaphysical image that a definite epoch forges of the world has the same structure as what the world immediately understands to be appropriate as a form of its political organization.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “All law is situational law. The sovereign produces and guarantees the situation in its totality. He has the monopoly over this last decision.”

8. “All law is situational law. The sovereign produces and guarantees the situation in its totality. He has the monopoly over this last decision.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “When will we learn that childhood is in a great sense not simply a preparation for adult life but a thing unique and complete in itself – a masterpiece of God.”

9. “When will we learn that childhood is in a great sense not simply a preparation for adult life but a thing unique and complete in itself – a masterpiece of God.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “A world state which which embraces the entire globe and all of humanity cannot exist. The political world is a pluriverse, not a universe.”

10. “A world state which which embraces the entire globe and all of humanity cannot exist. The political world is a pluriverse, not a universe.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The emptiness of mere majority calculus deprives legality of all persuasive power.”

11. “The emptiness of mere majority calculus deprives legality of all persuasive power.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “In general, it would be a peculiar type of ‘justice’ to declare a majority all the better and more just the more overwhelming it is, and to maintain abstractly that ninety-eight people abusing two persons is by far not so unjust as fifty-one people mistreating forty-nine. At this point, pure mathematics becomes simple inhumanity.”

12. “In general, it would be a peculiar type of ‘justice’ to declare a majority all the better and more just the more overwhelming it is, and to maintain abstractly that ninety-eight people abusing two persons is by far not so unjust as fifty-one people mistreating forty-nine. At this point, pure mathematics becomes simple inhumanity.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “All genuine political theories presuppose man to be ‘evil’.”

13. “All genuine political theories presuppose man to be ‘evil’.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “Intelligence and rationalism are not in themselves revolutionary. But technical thinking is foreign to all social traditions: the machine has no tradition. One of Karl Marx’s seminal sociological discoveries is that technology is the true revolutionary principle, beside which all revolutions based on natural law are antiquated forms of recreation. A society built exclusively on progressive technology would thus be nothing but revolutionary; but it would soon destroy itself and its technology.”

14. “Intelligence and rationalism are not in themselves revolutionary. But technical thinking is foreign to all social traditions: the machine has no tradition. One of Karl Marx’s seminal sociological discoveries is that technology is the true revolutionary principle, beside which all revolutions based on natural law are antiquated forms of recreation. A society built exclusively on progressive technology would thus be nothing but revolutionary; but it would soon destroy itself and its technology.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “I want to paint a canvasthat will be nothing but harmonious tone.”

15. “I want to paint a canvasthat will be nothing but harmonious tone.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The principle of equal chance is of such sensitivity that any serious doubt about the loyalty of all participants already renders the principle’s application impossible. For it is self-evident that one can hold open an equal chance only for those whom one is certain would do the same.”

16. “The principle of equal chance is of such sensitivity that any serious doubt about the loyalty of all participants already renders the principle’s application impossible. For it is self-evident that one can hold open an equal chance only for those whom one is certain would do the same.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “By claiming to be something more than the economic, the political is obliged to base itself on categories other than production and consumption. To repeat: it is curious that the capitalist entrepreneur and the socialist proletarian are of one accord in considering the political’s assumption a presumption and, from the standpoint of their economic thinking, regarding the dominance of politicians as immaterial.”

17. “By claiming to be something more than the economic, the political is obliged to base itself on categories other than production and consumption. To repeat: it is curious that the capitalist entrepreneur and the socialist proletarian are of one accord in considering the political’s assumption a presumption and, from the standpoint of their economic thinking, regarding the dominance of politicians as immaterial.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “In the temporal sphere, the temptation to evil inherent in every power is certainly unceasing. Only in God is the conflict between power and good ultimately resolved. But the desire to escape this conflict by rejecting every earthly power would lead to the worst inhumanity.”

18. “In the temporal sphere, the temptation to evil inherent in every power is certainly unceasing. Only in God is the conflict between power and good ultimately resolved. But the desire to escape this conflict by rejecting every earthly power would lead to the worst inhumanity.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The friend, enemy, and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing.”

19. “The friend, enemy, and combat concepts receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “Norms are valid only for normal situations.”

20. “Norms are valid only for normal situations.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “Without wanting to decide the question of the nature of man one may say in general that as long as man is well off or willing to put up with things, he prefers the illusion of an undisturbed calm and does not endure pessimists. The political adversaries of a clear political theory will, therefore, easily refute political phenomena and truths in the name of some autonomous discipline as amoral, uneconomical, unscientific and above all else declare this- a devilry worthy of being combated.”

21. “Without wanting to decide the question of the nature of man one may say in general that as long as man is well off or willing to put up with things, he prefers the illusion of an undisturbed calm and does not endure pessimists. The political adversaries of a clear political theory will, therefore, easily refute political phenomena and truths in the name of some autonomous discipline as amoral, uneconomical, unscientific and above all else declare this- a devilry worthy of being combated.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The political is the most intense and extreme antagonism, and every concrete antagonism becomes that much more political the closer it approaches the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy grouping.”

22. “The political is the most intense and extreme antagonism, and every concrete antagonism becomes that much more political the closer it approaches the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy grouping.”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The partisan is still the one who refuses to carry weapons openly, who fights from ambush, and who uses the enemy’s uniform, as well as true or false insignias and every type of civilian clothing as camouflage. Secrecy and darkness are his strongest weapons...”

23. “The partisan is still the one who refuses to carry weapons openly, who fights from ambush, and who uses the enemy’s uniform, as well as true or false insignias and every type of civilian clothing as camouflage. Secrecy and darkness are his strongest weapons...”

— Carl Schmitt

Carl Schmitt Quote: “The modern bourgeoisie, the social class that rots in fear for money and property, that has been morally shattered by scepticism, relativism, and parliamentarism. The form of rule of this class, modern democracy, is only a “demagogic plutocracy”.”

24. “The modern bourgeoisie, the social class that rots in fear for money and property, that has been morally shattered by scepticism, relativism, and parliamentarism. The form of rule of this class, modern democracy, is only a “demagogic plutocracy”.”

— Carl Schmitt

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