Ernst Bloch Quotes
Ernst Bloch was a German Marxist philosopher and one of the most original utopian thinkers of the twentieth century. After early association with Lukacs and Walter Benjamin, he spent the Nazi years in exile in the United States, then returned in 1949 to East Germany, from which he eventually fled to the West after the 1961 erection of the Berlin Wall. The quotes below are attributed to Ernst Bloch, organized by topic.
Browse Ernst Bloch by topic
Ernst Bloch on Death
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“In death too, there is always something of the rich cat that lets the mouse run before devouring it”
Traces (1930), p. 30 -
“Aber es steht doch in der Regel so, daß die Seele schuldig werden muß, um das schlecht Bestehende zu vernichten, um nicht durch idyllischen Rückzug, scheingute Duldung des Unrechts noch schuldiger zu werden .”
The soul must accept guilt in order to destroy existing evil, lest it incur the greater guilt of idyllic withdrawal, of seeming to be good by putting up with wrong. p. 36
Ernst Bloch on God
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Attributed to Ernst Bloch:
“Where there is hope, there is also religion.”
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“Atheismus im Christentum 1968, english translation: Atheism in Christianity: The Religion of the Exodus and the Kingdom 1972”
Only an atheist can be a good Christian. -
“How absurd it must seem for an immortal soul to be destined for Heaven or Hell, and yet be sitting in a kitchen, as a maid, or to see oneself objectified as a mechanic! how falsely the usual sunrise waked us, the clock dial, the city street the job! How wrongfully people find themselves in these systems — our time isn't there, our space isn't there, our space isn't even here... the whole social story of waking, and certainly the day of the mechanic, is false.”
Traces (1930), p. 27 -
“The soul must accept guilt in order to destroy existing evil, lest it incur the greater guilt of idyllic withdrawal, of seeming to be good by putting up with wrong. p. 36”
Aber es steht doch in der Regel so, daß die Seele schuldig werden muß, um das schlecht Bestehende zu vernichten, um nicht durch idyllischen Rückzug, scheingute Duldung des Unrechts noch schuldiger zu werden .
Ernst Bloch on Knowledge
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“How absurd it must seem for an immortal soul to be destined for Heaven or Hell, and yet be sitting in a kitchen, as a maid, or to see oneself objectified as a mechanic! how falsely the usual sunrise waked us, the clock dial, the city street the job! How wrongfully people find themselves in these systems — our time isn't there, our space isn't there, our space isn't even here... the whole social st”
Traces (1930), p. 27
Ernst Bloch on Life
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“On bourgeois ground … change is impossible anyway even if it were desired. In fact, bourgeois interest would like to draw every other interest opposed to it into its own failure; so, in order to drain the new life, it makes its own agony apparently fundamental, apparently ontological. The futility of bourgeois existence is extended to be that of the human situation in general, of existence per se.”
The Principle of Hope (1959), N. Plaice, trans. (1986), p. 4
Ernst Bloch on Mind
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Attributed to Ernst Bloch:
“Hope is the most human of all mental feelings.”
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Attributed to Ernst Bloch:
“The Not-Yet-Conscious is the deepest character of every existence.”
Ernst Bloch on Politics
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Attributed to Ernst Bloch:
“The genuinely revolutionary is the still unfinished, the not-yet-realized.”
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Attributed to Ernst Bloch:
“Dreams of a better life have been part of human history since its beginning.”
Ernst Bloch on Virtue
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“Only an atheist can be a good Christian.”
Atheismus im Christentum 1968, english translation: Atheism in Christianity: The Religion of the Exodus and the Kingdom 1972