It lies in human nature that where you experience your first laughs, you also remember the age kindly.
Lying can never save us from another lie.
We fell morally ill because we became used to saying something different from what we thought.
Ideology is a specious way of relating to the world. It offers human beings the illusion of an identity, of dignity, and of morality while making it easier for them to part with them.
Work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
If the world is to change for the better it must start with a change in human consciousness, in the very humanness of modern man.
Education is the ability to perceive the hidden connections between phenomena.
The hope of the world lies in the rehabilitation of the living human being, not just the body but also the soul.
Ultimately, power only really listens to power, and if government is to be improved, we must be able to threaten its existence, not merely its reputation.
Without free, self-respecting, and autonomous citizens there can be no free and independent nations. Without internal peace, that is, peace among citizens and between the citizens and the state, there can be no guarantee of external peace.
A human action becomes genuinely important when it springs from the soil of a clear-sighted awareness of the temporality and the ephemerally of everything human. It is only this awareness that can breathe any greatness into an action.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
People thought they could explain and conquer nature-yet the outcome is that they destroyed it and disinherited themselves from it.
I am convinced that we will never build a democratic state based on rule of law if we do not at the same time build a state that is-regardless of how unscientific this may sound to the ears of a political scientist-humane, moral, intellectual and spiritual, and cultural.
The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less.
As in everything else, I must start with myself. That is: in all circumstances try to be decent, just, tolerant, and understanding, and at the same time try to resist corruption and deception. In other words, I must do my utmost to act in harmony with my conscience and my better self.
The world is not divided into two types of being, one superior and the other merely surrounding it. Being, nature, the universe – they are all one infinitely complex and mysterious metaorganism of which we are but a part, though a unique one.
As soon as man began considering himself the source of the highest meaning in the world and the measure of everything, the world began to lose its human dimension, and man began to lose control of it.
Hope is a feeling that life and work have meaning. You either have it or you don’t, regardless of the state of the world that surrounds you.
Hope is a state of mind, not of the world. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously heading for success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good.