“We cannot think first and act afterwards. From the moment of birth we are immersed in action and can only guide it by taking thought.”

“The problem is that we cannot recognize that what we say about out thoughts and actions is, at best, incoherent; we can and do recognize this after the fact. But once having admitted to ourselves our own subterfuges we are confronted by newer forms, which again we only recognize after the fact. We can never at the moment itself be honest with ourselves, never really understand when we are acting out what we are truly all about. It is only in retrospect that we can explain ourselves, and this retrospective view is hardly reassuring because it does so little to alter our behavior in the future”

“It is terribly important to realize that the leap of faith is not so much a leap of thought as of action. For while in many matters it is first we must see then we will act; in matters of faith it is first we must do then we will know, first we will be and then we will see. One must, in short, dare to act wholeheartedly without absolute certainty.”

“All rational action is in the first place individual action. Only the individual thinks. Only the individual reasons. Only the individual acts.”

“When we cannot bear to be alone, it means we do not properly value the only companion we will have from birth to death - ourselves.”

“You can break a thing, but you cannot always guide it afterward into the shape you want.”