23 Quotes by Carl Schmitt

The political is the most intense and extreme antagonism, and every concrete antagonism becomes that much more political the closer it approaches the most extreme point, that of the friend-enemy grouping.

Sovereign is he who decides on the exception.

Every actual democracy rests on the principle that not only are equals equal but unequals will not be treated equally. Democracy requires, therefore, first homogeneity and second—if the need arises elimination or eradication of heterogeneity.

The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy.

The essence and value of the law lies in its stability and durability (...), in its “relative eternity.” Only then does the legislator’s self-limitation and the independence of the law-bound judge find an anchor. The experiences of the French Revolution showed how an unleashed pouvoir législatif could generate a legislative orgy.

Legality has become a poisonous dagger, with which one party stabs the other in the back.

The crisis of European jurisprudence began a century ago with the victory of legal positivism.

True law is not imposed; it arises from unintentional developments. (...)Law emerges (...) as something not merely legislated but given. The later positivism knows no origin and has no home. It recognizes only causes or basic norms. It seeks to be the opposite of “unintended” law. Its ultimate goal is control and calculability.

Tell me who your enemy is, and I will tell you who you are.