In this life of ours we remain directed toward the relative utopia of a better world, and sensibly this can be the only model for our action.

Disarmament requires trust.

I have left the federal government and the German Bundestag; I have resigned from all my positions in the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

Everywhere, authority and tradition have to justify themselves in the face of questions.

War is not the quintessential emergency in which man has to prove himself, as my generation learned at its school desks in the days of the Kaiser; rather, peace is the emergency in which we all have to prove ourselves.

We have to recognize that the freedom of the individual has to be protected not only from the power of the state, but even more so from economic and societal power.

Liberal democracy must finally become the vital element of our society.