Total loyalty is possible only when fidelity is emptied of all concrete content, from which changes of mind might naturally arise.

What I cannot live with may not bother another man's conscience. The result is that conscience will stand against conscience.

There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.

Under conditions of terror, most people will comply but some people will not.

There always comes a point beyond which lying becomes counterproductive. This point is reached when the audience to which the lies are addressed is forced to disregard altogether the distinguishing line between truth and falsehood in order to be able to survive.

The blessing of life as a wholecan never be found in work.

We are wont to see friendship solely as a phenomenon of intimacy in which the friends open their hearts to each other unmolested by the world and its demands...Thus it is hard for us to understand the political relevance of friendship...But for the Greeks the essence of friendship consisted in discourse...The converse (in contrast to the intimate talk in which individuals speak about themselves), permeated though it may be by pleasure in the friend’s presence, is concerned with the common world.