The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy. — Carl Schmitt Copy Share Image
The concept of humanity is an especially useful ideological instrument of imperialist expansion, and in its ethical-humanitarian form it is a specific vehicle of economic imperialism. Here one is reminded of a somewhat modified expression of Proudhon’s: whoever invokes humanity wants to cheat. To confiscate the word humanity, to invoke and monopolize such a term probably has certain incalculable effects,… — Carl Schmitt Copy Share
All significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts. — Carl Schmitt Copy Share Image
The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything. In the exception the power of real life… — Carl Schmitt Copy Share Image
“In the nomadic age, the shepherd (nomeus) was the typical symbol of rule. In Statesman, Plato distinguishes the shepherd from the statesman: the nemein of the shepherd is concerned with the nourishment (trophe) of his flock, and the shepherd is a kind of god in relation to the animals he herds. In contrast, the statesman does not stand as far… — Carl Schmitt Copy Share
“The crisis of European jurisprudence began a century ago with the victory of legal positivism.” — Carl Schmitt Copy Share Image
“Hauriou, became a crown witness for us when he confirmed this connection in 1916, in the midst of WWI: “The revolution of 1789 had no other goal than absolute access to the writing of legal statutes and the systematic destruction of customary institutions. It resulted in a state of permanent revolution because the mobility of the writing of laws did… — Carl Schmitt Copy Share
The metaphysical image that a definite epoch forges of the world has the same structure as what the world immediately understands to be appropriate… — Carl Schmitt Copy Share Image
“The political enemy need not be morally evil or aesthetically ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor, and it may even be advantageous to engage with him in business transactions. But he is, nevertheless, the other, the stranger; and it is sufficient for his nature that he is, in a specially intense way, existentially something different and alien,… — Carl Schmitt Copy Share
“True law is not imposed; it arises from unintentional developments. (...)Law emerges (...) as something not merely legislated but given. The later positivism knows… — Carl Schmitt Copy Share Image
“The most brazen humiliation ever inflicted upon God and mankind, justifying all the curses of the synagogue, is to be found in the 'sive'… — Carl Schmitt Copy Share Image
