“The human being is not the lord of beings, but the shepherd of Being.”

Only he who already understands can listen.

Language is the house of Being.

To dwell is to garden.

The question of existence never gets straightened out except through existing itself.

Everything has always already been said. And yet this “same” possesses, as its inner truth, the inexhaustable wealth of what is on every day as if that day were its first.

Technology is therefore no mere means. Technology is a way of revealing.

The possible ranks higher than the actual.

All the poems of the poet who has entered into his poethood are poems of homecoming.

Nothing is everything that doesn’t happen at this very moment.

To say philosophy originates in wonder means philosophy is wondrous in its essence and becomes more wondrous the more it becomes what it really is.

Language speaks and not the human.

Technology is a mode of revealing. Technology comes to presence in the realm where revealing and unconcealment take place, where aletheia, truth, happens.

To be a poet in a destitute time means: to attend, singing, to the trace of the fugitive gods. This is why the poet in the time of the world’s night utters the holy.

If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life – and only then will I be free to become myself.

Questioning is the piety of thought.

Everyone is the other and no one is himself.

Unanimous hatred is the greatest medicine for a human community.

Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights.

It’s human; we all put self interest first.

Leadership takes work. It takes time and energy. The effects are not always easily measured and they are not always immediate. Leadership is always a commitment to human beings.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. It’s very hard to live up to an image, put it that way.

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.

What is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?

When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.