“The battle is a collision of power, of gods themselves: man is only a pawn in these terrible games, or their scene, or their medium; but man's greatness consists precisely in his act of becoming such medium. By this act… — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
The more determinedly I exist, as myself, within the conditions of the time, the more clearly I shall hear the language of the past,… — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
Nietzsche's ideas and plans: for example, the idea of giving up the whole wretched academic world to form a secular monastic community. — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
What is meaningful cannot in fact be isolated…. We achieve understanding within a circular movement from particular facts to the whole that includes them… — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
“But each one of us is guilty insofar as he remained inactive. The guilt of passivity is different. Impotence excuses; no moral law demands a spectacular death. Plato already deemed it a matter of course to go into hiding in desperate times of calamity, and to survive. But passivity knows itself morally guilty of every failure, every neglect to act… — Karl Jaspers Copy Share
At the present moment, the security of coherent philosophy, which existed from Parmenides to Hegel, is lost. — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
The great philosophers and the great works are standards for the selection of what is essential. Everything that we do in studying the history… — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
We must learn to talk with each other, and we mutually must understand and accept one another in our extraordinary differences. — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
The Socratic teacher turns his students away from himself and back onto themselves; he hides in paradoxes, makes himself inaccessible. The intimate relationship between… — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
What makes us afraid is our great freedom in the face of the emptiness that has still to be filled. — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
To decide to become a philosopher seemed as foolish to me as to decide to become a poet. — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
Philosophy is tested and characterised by the way in which it appropriates its history. — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
“Tragedy occurs whenever awareness exceeds power; and particularly where awareness of a major need exceeds the power to satisfy it.” — Karl Jaspers Copy Share Image
