Tzvetan Todorov Quotes

Tzvetan Todorov challenges easy moral labels, warning against forced democracy and the arrogance of self-proclaimed virtue.

16 quotes

We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found.

#1
Democracy brought to others through the barrel of a gun is not democracy.

#2
People who believe themselves to be the incarnation of good have a distorted view of the world.

#3
For evil to take place, the acts of a few people are not sufficient; the great majority also has to remain indifferent. That is something of which we are all quite capable.

#4
“Nobody is entirely satisfied with the condition in which he or she lives: we often have the impression that these conditions are getting worse. Whose fault is this? It is tempting to seek a simple answer and an easily identifiable guilty person or group: it is this temptation that produces populist movements and parties.”
“The fear of barbarians is what risks making us barbarians.”
“It is no longer necessary to resort to the power of a state in order to inflict heavy losses on your enemy, since a few highly motivated individuals with even a minimum of financial resources are enough."Hostile Forces" have completely changed their appearance.”
“The thirst for vengeance did not wait for Islam to appear in the world, and the appeal to the law of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is universal. ”
“Every human being needs a set of norms and rules, traditions and customs, transmitted from the older to the younger; without those norms, the individual would never achieve the fullness of his humanity, but would be reduced to the condition of the 'Wild Child", condemned to anomie, in other words to the absence of all law and all order- an absence that can create severe disturbances.”
“When 'all is permitted' in the fight against terror, a counter-terrorist starts to become indistinguishable from the initial terrorist.”
“When an angry mob demands the death of a female English schoolteacher alleged to have insulted the Prophet, as happened in Sudan in November 2007, the real objective was not the defence of Islam but of honour, which – it was felt – had been slighted for many long years by the Western powers. This ‘spontaneous’ use of religion was accompanied by its deliberate instrumentalization by those who are pursuing other objectives, but who prefer this disguise. Even the Crusades, as I have said, had several motives other than religious ones, but these motives were merely less easy to admit to; so they preferred to declare that Jerusalem needed to be liberated. Such a cause appears nobler; and, in addition, the appeal to cultural identity allows more powerful inner resources to be mobilized.”
“The past requires not only that we study it and know it, but also that we learn its lessons - for this simple reason: evil is not just a thing of the past.”
“Wars are motivated by the need to seize the wealth of our neighbours, to wield power, to protect ourselves from real or imagined threats: in short they have, as we have seen, political, social, economic or demographic causes. There is no need to refer to Islam or the clash of civilizations to explain why the Afghans or the Iraqis resist the western military forces occupying their countries. Nor to speak of anti-Jewish sentiment or anti-Semitism to understand the reasons why the Palestinians are not overjoyed by the Israeli occupation of their lands.”
“Unlimited freedom kills freedom.”
“Sjecanje na nase tuge sprecava nas da vidimo patnju drugih. Koji evropski ili azijski narod na kraju I &II Sv Rata nije bio preokupiran previjanjem bezbrojnih rana.”
“When ‘all is permitted’ in the fight against terror, a counter-terrorist starts to become indistinguishable from the initial terrorist. Furthermore, all the terrorists in the world think they are counter-terrorists, merely responding to a prior act of terror. They are not the only ones: it is always possible, and easy, to find a prior violence that supposedly justifies our present violence. But, on this way of reckoning, war will never end.”