Emmanuel Levinas Quotes

Faith is not a question of the existence or non-existence of God. It is believing that love without reward is valuable.

I will say this quite plainly, what truly human is -and don't be afraid of this word- love. And I mean it even with everything that burdens love or, i could say it better, responsibility is actually love, as Pascal said: 'without concupiscence' [without lust]... love exists without worrying being loved.

For others, in spite of myself, from myself.

To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught. The relation with the Other, or Conversation, is a non-allergic relation, an ethical relation; but inasmuch as it is welcomed this conversation is a teaching. Teaching is not reducible to maieutics; it comes from the exterior and brings me more than I contain. In its non-violent transitivity the very epiphany of the face is produced.

What could an entirely rational being speak of with another entirely rational being?

We breathe for the sake of breathing, eat and drink for the sake of eating and drinking, we take shelter for the sake of taking shelter, we study to satisfy our curiosity, we take a walk for the walk. All that's not for the sake of living, it is living. Life is a sincerity.

To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But this also means: to be taught.” ― Emmanuel Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority

the "small goodness" from one person to his fellowman is lost and deformed as soon as it seeks organization and universality and system, as soon as it opts for doctrine, a treatise of politics and theology, a party, a state, and even a church. Yet it remains the sole refuge of the good in being. Unbeaten, it undergoes the violence of evil, which, as small goodness, it can neither vanquish nor drive out. A little kindness going only from man to man, not crossing distances to get to the places where events and forces unfold! A remarkable utopia of the good or the secret of its beyond.

Le présent, libre a l'égard du passé, mais captif de lui-même, respire la gravité de l'être où il s'engage

Tools refer to one another to finally refer to our care for existing. In turning on a bathroom switch, we open up the entire ontological problem

…in crucial times, when the perishability of so many values is revealed, all human dignity consists in believing in their return.

In weariness, existence is like the reminder of a commitment to exist, with all the seriousness and harshness of an irrevocable contract. One has to do something, one has to aspire after and undertake [...] In weariness we want to escape existence itself, and not only one of its landscapes in a longing for more beautiful skies. An evasion without an itinerary and without an end, it is not trying to come ashore somewhere.

Its strangeness is, we might say, due to its very reality, to the very fact that there is existence. The questioning of Being is an experience of Being in its strangeness

One can like one's job, enjoy these material gestures and the things that permit the accomplishing of them. One can transform the curse of labor into sport. Activity does not derive its value and meaning from an ultimate and unique goal [...] To enjoy without utility, in pure loss, gratuitously, without referring to anything else, in pure expenditure---this is human.

El amor no es una posibilidad, no se debe a nuestra iniciativa, es sin razón, nos invade y nos hiere y, sin embargo, el yo sobrevive en él. Una fenomenología de la voluptuosidad -la voluptuosidad no es un placer cualquiera, porque no es un placer solitario como el comer o el beber-, parece confirmar nuestro punto de vista sobre el papel y el lugar excepcionales representados por lo femenino, y sobre la ausencia de toda fusión en el erotismo.

At the very moment when the world seems to break up we still take it seriously and perform reasonable acts and undertakings, the condemned man still drinks his glass of rum. To call it everyday and condemn it as inauthentic is to fail to recognize the sincerity of hunger and thirst

To approach the Other in conversation is to welcome his expression, in which at each instant he overflows the idea a thought would carry away from it. It is therefore to receive from the Other beyond the capacity of the I, which means exactly: to have the idea of infinity. But it also means: to be taught.

«الإنسان أكثر قداسةً من الأرض ولو أنها مقدّسة. أمام الهجوم على الإنسان، تبدو هذه الأرض حجارةً وخشباً».

A fine risk is always something to be taken in philosophy. ... Philosophy thus arouses a drama between philosophers and an intersubjective movement which does not resemble the dialogue of teamworkers in science, nor even the Platonic dialogue which is the reminiscence of a drama rather than a drama itself. It is sketched out in a different structure; empirically it is realized as the history of philosophy in which new interlocutors always enter who have to restate, but in which the former ones take up the floor to answer in the interpretations they arouse, and in which, nonetheless, despite a lack of "certainty in one's movements" or because of it, no one is allowed a relaxation of attention or a lack of strictness.

The contemporary world, scientific, technical, and sensualist, sees itself without exit - that is, without God - not because everything there is permitted and, by the way of technology, possible, but because everything there is equal. The unknown is immediately made familiar [...] The enchantment of sites, hyperbole of metaphorical concepts, the artifice of art, exaltation of ceremonies, the magic of solemnities - everywhere is suspected and denounced a theatrical apparatus, a purely rhetorical transcendence, the game. Vanity of vanities: the echo of our own voices, taken for a response to the few prayers that still remain to us; everywhere we have fallen back upon our own feet, as after the ecstasies of a drug. Except the other whom, in all this boredom, we cannot let go.

In the human, lo and behold, the possible apparition of an ontological absurdity. The concern for the other breaches concern for self. This is what I call holiness. Our humanity consists in being able to recognize this priority of the other . . . . It is here in this priority of the other man over me that, before my admiration for creation, well before my search for the first cause of the universe, God comes to mind.

Indeed, language, thought, and discourse are not what is most basic and determinative about human life as social and interpersonal. To say that ethics is more primary than philosophy is also to say that praxis is more primary than theory and that acting on behalf of the needs of other persons is more important, more basic, and more the point of being human than thinking about them or even following rules aimed at them or their well-being. Caring for you is the most human thing I can do, and a world in which I act toward you by acknowledging, accepting, and aiding you is best, enriched by my act and the acts of everyone who acts similarly.

La relación con lo Otro me pone en cuestión, me vacía de mí mismo y no deja de vaciarme, descubriéndome en tal modo con recursos siempre nuevos.

Gelecekle ilişki, geleceğin şimdideki mevcudiyeti de başkasıyla ilişkide gerçekleşir gibi görünüyor. Yüz yüze durumu, zamanın bizzat gerçekleşmesi olsa gerek; şimdinin geleceğe adım atması yalnız bir öznenin olgusu değil, öznelerarası ilişkidir. Zamanın koşulu insanlararası ilişkide veya tarihte bulunur. Emmanuel Levinas

Parallel to other theorists of subjective interdependency, the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas held that because the self is constituted only through its relationship to the other, we are ethically compelled to that other's care. Drawing on this idea and on cultures of hospitality, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida advocated an ethics of limitless hospitality to 'the stranger.

The criticism that brings a work to enduring life is that criticism which awakens the work with its apology for disturbing it, as it inevitably must do, with eyes that do not see well, ears that fail to hear all they should, [and] attentiveness that waxes and wanes.

Het solipsisme is geen verstandsverbijstering en geen sofisme; het is de wezenlijke structuur van de rede.

Ich kämpfe nicht mit einem Gott ohne Antlitz, sondern antworte auf seinen Ausdruck, seine Offenbarung.

Muchos siglos más tarde, un pariente intelectual de Heródoto, el filósofo Emmanuel Levinas —lituano, francés adoptivo y judío—, que sobrevivió a un campo de concentración alemán tras perder a toda su familia en Auschwitz, escribiría: «Mi acogimiento del otro es el hecho decisivo por el cual se iluminan las cosas».

De beschaving is wezenlijk hypocriet , dat wil zeggen zowel gehecht aan het Ware als aan het Goede, die voortaan elkaars tegenspelers zijn. Het is misschien tijd om in de hypocrisie niet slechts een toevallig kwalijk gebrek van de mens te zien, maar de diepe verscheurdheid van een wereld die tegelijkertijd gehecht is aan filosofen en aan profeten.

Être soi, autrement qu'être, se dés-intéresser c'est porter la misère et la faillite de l'autre et même la responsabilité que l'autre peut avoir de moi.