"Let
us not pledge ourselves to any philosophical school or take formulable
truth as such for the one and exclusive truth; let us be master
of our thoughts;
"Let
us not heap up philosophical possessions, but apprehend philosophical
thought as movement and seek to deepen it;
"Let
us battle for truth and humanity in unconditional communication
"Let
us acquire the power to learn from all the past, by making it
our own; let us listen to our contemporaries and remain open to
all possibilities;
"Let
each of us as an individual immerse himself in his own historicity,
in his origin, in what he has done; let him possess himself of
what he was, of what he has become, and of what has been given
to him;
"Let
us not cease to grow through our own historicity into the historicity
of man as a whole and thus make ourselves into citizens of the
world
"We lend
little credence to a philosopher who is imperturbable, we do not
believe in the calm of the Stoic, we do not even desire to be
unmoved, for it is our humanity itself which drives us into
passion and fear and causes us in tears and rejoicing to experience
what is. Consequently, only by rising from the chains
that bind us to our emotions, not by destroying them, do we come
to ourselves. Hence we must venture to be men and then do what
we can to move forward to our true independence. Then we shall
suffer without complaining, despair without succumbing; we shall
be shaken but not overturned, for the inner independence
that grows up in us will sustain us."
