Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to one single deed from which we could never recover; we would remain the victims of its consequences forever.

Caution in handling generally accepted opinions that claim to explain whole trends of history is especially important for the historian of modern times, because the last century has produced an abundance of ideologies that pretend to be keys to history but are actually nothing but desperate efforts to escape responsibility.

Death not merely ends life, it also bestows upon it a silent completeness, snatched from the hazardous flux to which all things human are subject.

To think and to be fully alive are the same.

The extreme form of power is All against One, the extreme form of violence is One against All.

Wherever the relevance of speech is at stake, matters become political by definition, for speech is what makes man a political being.

Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.