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.

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

If philosophy is practice, a demand to know the manner in which its history is to be studied is entailed: a theoretical attitude toward it becomes real only in the living appropriation of its contents from the texts.

Only as an individual can man become a philosopher.

We must learn to talk with each other, and we mutually must understand and accept one another in our extraordinary differences.

A scientific approach means knowing what one knows and what one doesn't. Absolute or complete knowledge is unscientific.

At the present moment, the security of coherent philosophy, which existed from Parmenides to Hegel, is lost.