Fedon B

“Sometimes Tolstoy comes near to saying what it is: the more we know, he tells us, about a given human action, the more
inevitable, determined it seems to us to be. Why? Because the more we know about all the relevant conditions and antecedents,
the more difficult we find it to think away various circumstances, and conjecture what might have occurred without them; and as
we go on removing in our imagination what we know to be true, fact by fact, this becomes not merely difficult but impossible.

Tolstoy’s meaning is not obscure. We are what we are, and live in a given situation which has the characteristics – physical, psychological, social – that it has; what we think, feel, do is conditioned
by it, including our capacity for conceiving possible alternatives, whether in the present or future or past. Our imagination and ability to calculate, our power of conceiving, let us say, what
might have been, if the past had, in this or that particular, been otherwise, soon reaches its natural limits, limits created both by the weakness of our capacity for calculating alternatives – ‘might have beens’ – and (we may add by a logical extension of Tolstoy’s argument) even more by the fact that our thoughts, the terms in
which they occur, the symbols themselves, are what they are, are themselves determined by the actual structure of our world. Our images and powers of conception are limited by the fact that our world possesses certain characteristics and not others: a world too different is (empirically) not conceivable at all; some minds are more imaginative than others, but all stop somewhere.”
― Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History

“We often hear lamentations that the coal stored up in the earth is wasted by the present generation without any thought of the future, and we are terrified by the awful destruction of life and property which has followed the volcanic eruptions of our days. We may find a kind of consolation in the consideration that here, as in every other case, there is good mixed with the evil. By the influence of the increasing percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere, we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.”
― Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the Making, the Evolution of the Universe, Vol. 1

“Tragedies can be resolved in one of two ways: there is the Shakespearean resolution and there is the Chekhovian one. At the end of a Shakespearean tragedy, the stage is strewn with dead bodies and maybe there’s some justice hovering high above. A Chekhov tragedy, on the other hand, ends with everybody disillusioned, embittered, heartbroken, disappointed, absolutely shattered, but still alive. And I want a Chekhovian resolution, not a Shakespearean one, for the Israeli/Palestine tragedy.”
― Amos Oz, In The Land Of Israel

“Η ΣΤΙΓΜΗ

Και σκέψου τη στιγμή που ο παλιός σου σύντροφος
εκείνος που έμεινε στο στρατόπεδο τον τετραπλάσιο καιρό
εκείνος που γυρίζοντας δε βρήκε κανέναν να τον περιμένει
εκείνος που σας χώρισαν τα χρόνια και οι τόποι
σου πει: "Μας άφησες, παράτησες την πίστη σου
δε λες πια την αλήθεια".
Τί ν' απαντήσω τότε, τί ν' αποκριθώ;
Πώς πια δεν συμβιβάζονται πίστη και αλήθεια;
Και τι έστιν αλήθεια;
Άραγε τη γνώρισα ποτέ
ή μου την υποβάλλανε διαρκώς παραλλαγμένη
ενθουσιασμοί και φόβοι, θυσίες και υποχωρήσεις,
η πίεση του ταξικού εχθρού, της επανάστασης οι ανάγκες;
Και τώρα; Αναζητάμε τώρα την αλήθεια;
Τολμάμε να την ξεστομίσουμε κι ό,τι βγει;
Όχι μονάχα στου απόδειπνου την ώρα, όταν
σ' αποχαυνώνουν η χώνεψη, του αίματος οι γλυκές επιθυμίες,
όχι μονάχα την ώρα αναπολήσεων άθλων και θανάτων,
μα κάθε στιγμή, μέσα στις λόχμες του έρωτα
μέσα στις στάχτες των όσων κάνουμε και λέμε
μέσα στις νόμιμες απαιτήσεις μιας τρέχουσας ζωής.”
― Τίτος Πατρίκιος, Ποιήματα Β'