This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.

Where all are guilty, no one is; confessions of collective guilt are the best possible safeguard against the discovery of culprits, and the very magnitude of the crime the best excuse for doing nothing.

Man cannot be free if he does not know that he is subject to necessity, because his freedom is always won in his never wholly successful attempts to liberate himself from necessity.

Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.

Economic growth may one day turn out to be a curse rather than a good, and under no conditions can it either lead into freedom or constitute a proof for its existence.

Promises are the uniquely human way of ordering the future, making it predictable and reliable to the extent that this is humanly possible.