Keep the company of those who seek the truth- run from those who have found it

There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.

Our country, if that is what we want, can now permanently radiate love, understanding, the power of the spirit and of ideas. It is precisely this glow that we can offer as our specific contribution to international politics.

All human suffering concerns each human being.

Drama assumes an order. If only so that it might have - by disrupting that order - a way of surprising.

My dear fellow citizens: For forty years you have heard from my predecessors on this day different variations of the same theme: how our country flourished, how many millions of tons of steel we produced, how happy we all were, how we trusted our government, and what bright perspectives were unfolding in front of us. I assume you did not propose me for this office so that I, too, would lie to you.

True enough, the country is calm. Calm as a morgue or a grave, would you not say?