Lev Shestov Quotes on Justice
Lev Isaakovich Shestov was a Russian Jewish religious-existentialist philosopher who emigrated after the Bolshevik revolution and spent the rest of his life in Paris. This page collects quotes attributed to Lev Shestov on the topic of justice, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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“Thales was the father of ancient philosophy. His consternation, and the firm beliefs to which this gave rise, were transmitted to his pupils and to their pupils again. The law of heredity exercises as despotic and unlimited a sway in philosophy as in all other fields of organic existence. Let any one who doubts this cast a glance at any text-book. Since Hegel no one has dared imagine that the philosopher is able to think and inquire “freely”. The philosopher grows out of the past, like a plant out of the earth. Foreword xxxi”
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“What can be more terrible than not to know whether one is alive or dead? “Justice” should insist that this knowledge or this ignorance should be the prerogative of every human being. p. 3”
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“Suppose Euripides is right, and that indeed no one can be sure whether life is not death and death life; can this truth ever become certain? If all men daily repeated Euripides’ words when they got up and when they went to bed, they would remain as strange and as problematic as on the day when the poet first heard them in the depths of his soul. P. 6”
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“Directly Kant hears the word “law” pronounced he takes his hat off; he neither wishes nor dares to dispute. He who says “law” says “power”; he who says “power” says “submission” – for man’s supreme virtue is to submit himself. P. 23”
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