Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible.

To be sure, nothing is more important to the integrity of the universities . . . than a rigorously enforced divorce from war-oriented research and all connected enterprises.

Philosophy is called upon to compensate for the frustrations of politics and, more generally, of life itself.

Every end in history necessarily contains a new beginning.

It is quite gratifying to feel guilty if you haven't done anything wrong: how noble! Whereas it is rather hard and certainly depressing to admit guilt and to repent.

Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would be inevitable.

We are free to change the world and start something new in it.