Carl Schmitt
A German jurist and political theorist known for his controversial work on sovereignty, the concept of the political (friend-enemy distinction), and the state of exception.
Quotes by Carl Schmitt
The political is the sphere of the concrete order, not the abstract chaos.
The political is the sphere of the concrete authority, not the abstract freedom.
The political is the sphere of the concrete obedience, not the abstract rebellion.
The political is the sphere of the concrete responsibility, not the abstract innocence.
The political is the sphere of the concrete sacrifice, not the abstract comfort.
The political is the sphere of the concrete risk, not the abstract security.
The political is the sphere of the concrete courage, not the abstract fear.
The political is the sphere of the concrete honor, not the abstract shame.
The political is the sphere of the concrete glory, not the abstract oblivion.
The political is the sphere of the concrete meaning, not the abstract absurdity.
The exception is more interesting than the rule.
The political enemy need not be morally evil or ugly; he need not appear as an economic competitor.
War is the continuation of politics by other means.
The nomos of the earth is a spatial order with legal conceptions about space.
Every political idea has a double face: it is both a claim to truth and a weapon of power.
The state is the decisive human community within which decisions are made about life and death.
Law is politics, because of the indeterminacy of the legal concept of the state.
The decision parts here from the legal norm, and (to put it quite simply) as in the exception, this is true in principle every time the decision is made about something political.
In the exception the power of real life breaks through the crust of a mechanism that has become torpid and hollow.
The theory of the state presupposes the concrete political situation.