“When ethics thus moves into the domain of politics and becomes morality, the possibility of violence appears because of the threat of the application of such absolutist forms of thought. Further, although the moral agent must remain free in order to avoid the totalizing domination of the state, morality must still be grounded in the ethical relation of the face-to-face.”
“For others, in spite of myself, from myself.”
Emmanuel Levinas
“If every pure character in the Old Testament announces the Messiah, if every unworthy person is his torturer and every woman his Mother, does not the Book of Books lose all life with this obsessive th...”
Emmanuel Levinas
“To ignore the true God is in fact only half an evil; atheism is worth more than the piety bestowed on mythical gods.”
Emmanuel Levinas
“The moral consciousness can sustain the mocking gaze of the political man only if the certitude of peace dominates the evidence of war. Such a certitude is not obtained by a simple play of antitheses....”
Emmanuel Levinas
“The comprehension of God taken as a participation in his sacred life, an allegedly direct comprehension, is impossible, because participation is a denial of the divine, and because nothing is more dir...”
Emmanuel Levinas
