Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.

My own being can be judged by the depths I reach in making these historical origins my own.

The Greek word for philosopher (philosophos) connotes a distinction from sophos. It signifies the lover of wisdom (knowledge) as distinguished from him who considers himself wise in the possession of knowledge. This meaning of the word still endures: the essence of philosophy is not the possession of the truth but the search for truth. ... Philosophy means to be on the way. Its questions are more essential than its answers, and every answer becomes a new question.

What makes us afraid is our great freedom in the face of the emptiness that has still to be filled.

To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet.

The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past, the nearer I shall feel the glow of its life.

Only then, approaching my fortieth birthday, I made philosophy my life's work.