[A] process was going on in which people were transformed into things, into pieces of reality which pure science can calculate and technical science can control. … [T]he safety which is guaranteed by well-functioning mechanisms for the technical control of nature, by the refined psychological control of the person, by the rapidly increasing organizational control of society – this safety is bought at a high price: man, for whom all this was invented as a means, becomes a means himself in the service of means.

There is faith in every serious doubt, namely, the faith in the truth as such, even if the only truth we can express is our lack of truth.

In the courageous standing of uncertainty, faith shows most visibly its dynamic character.

The fatal pedagogical error is to throw answers like stones at the heads of those who have not yet asked the questions.

Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone.

Parents need to listen as much to their kids as they do to them: "The first duty of love is to listen."

The character of human life, like the character of the human condition, like the character of all life, is "ambiguity": the inseparable mixture of good and evil, the true and false, the creative and destructive forces-both individual and social.