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.

I discovered that the study of past philosophers is of little use unless our own reality enters into it. Our reality alone allows the thinker's questions to become comprehensible.

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

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 in those moments when I exercise my freedom am I fully myself.

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

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