46 Quotes by Paul Watzlawick

The suicide arrives at the conclusion that what he is seeking does not exist; the seeker concludes that what he has not yet looked in the right place.

...The world's benefactor has no choice; he is the surgeon who wields the healing scalpel. He does not want the violence, but the reality (which he has invented) drives him to use violence, in a way, against his will. Throwing a bomb into a crowded department store thus becomes an act of revolutionary love for mankind (and, in general, to quote Lübbe again, 'his primary intention is not to throw bombs into department stores or police stations, but rather into public consciousness.')

Thus when an interpretation of the world, an ideology, for example, claims to explain everything, one thing remains inexplicable, namely, the interpretive system itself. And with that, every claim to completeness and finality fails.

One cannot not communicate.

We are spun into communication; even our self-consciousness hangs… of communication…. and[we] are – or for that very reason – almost incapable of communicating through communication.” — Paul Watzlawick, Menschliche Kommunikation. S. 42 f.

Warum fällt es uns bloß so schwer, einzusehem, daß das Leben ein Nichtnullsummenspiel ist? Daß man daher gemeinsam gewinnen kann, sobald man nicht mehr davon besessen ist, den Partner besiegen zu müssen, um nicht besiegt zu werden?

The counterpart of the suicide is the seeker; but the difference between them is slight

The counterpart of the suicide is the seeker; but the difference between them is slight.

This is the secret of propaganda: To totally saturate the person, whom the propaganda wants to lay hold of, with the ideas of the propaganda, without him even noticing that he is being saturated.