“We have not the remotest realistic inkling of a consciousness which is not self-consciousness.”

“It is an absolutely vain endeavor to attempt to reconstruct or even comprehend the nature of a human being by simply knowing the forces which have acted upon him. However deeply we should like to penetrate, however close we seem to be drawing to truth, one unknown quantity eludes us: man's primordial energy, his original self, that personality which was given him with the gift of life itself. On it rests man's true freedom; it alone determines his real character.”

“Results are nothing; the energies which produce them and which again spring from them are everything.”

“Human nature must be something which always remains one and the same, but which may be carried out in manifold ways.”

“To judge a man means nothing other than to ask: What content does he give to the form of humanity? What concept should we have of humanity if he were its only representative?”

“All situations in which the interrelationships between extremes are involved are the most interesting and instructive.”

“If we reason that we want happiness for others, not for ourselves, then we ought justly to be suspected of failing to recognize human nature for what it is and of wishing to turn men into machines.”