Crucial for man is his attitude toward failure: whether it remains hidden from him and overwhelms him only objectively at the end or whether he perceives it unobscured as the constant limit of his existence; whether he snatches at fantastic solutions and consolations or faces it honestly, in silence before the unfathomable. The way in which man approaches his failure determines what he will become.
Thus those who are deluded into supposing that they possess being as such often endeavour to make man forget himself. Man is dissolved in fictions of being and yet these fictions themselves always conceal a possible road back to man; hidden dissatisfaction may lead to the recovery of the authentic seriousness which becomes real only in existential presence and casts off the ruinous attitude of those who take life as it is and do what they please.
I should not suffer so deeply from lack of communication or find such unique pleasure in authentic communication if I for myself, in absolute solitude, could be certain of the truth. But I am only in conjunction with the Other, alone I am nothing.
A critical approach to science calls for the abandonment of world systems, which is also a prerequisite to any philosophical apperception of being. True, the philosophical quest of being demands a familiarity with every branch of scientific inquiry. But it seems to be the hidden aim of science to attain through inquiry to a limit at which the area of nonknowledge is opened to the most lucid knowledge. For only fulfilled knowledge can lead to authentic nonknowledge. Then authentic being is revealed not in any world system built on knowledge but in fulfilled nonknowledge, which can be achieved only through scientific cognition, not without it and not before it. It is the supreme striving of knowledge to reach the point where cognition fails.
This I know: in my freedom I am not through myself, but am given to myself, for I can fail myself and I cannot force my freedom. Where I am authentically myself, I am certain that I am not through myself. The highest freedom is experienced in freedom from the world, and this freedom is a profound bond with transcendence.
Dieser Philosoph ist unabhängig: erstens, weil er bedürfnislos ist, frei von der Welt der Güter und von der Herrschaft der Triebe, er lebt asketisch; zweitens, weil er ohne Angst ist, denn er hat die Schreckbilder der Religionen in ihrer Unwahrheit durchschaut; drittens, weil er unbeteiligt an Staat und Politik ist, in der Verborgenheit in Ruhe lebt, ohne Bindungen, als Weltbürger. --- This philosopher is independent, first because he is without needs, free from the world of possessions and the rule of passions, he is an ascetic; second, because he is without fear, for he has seen through the illusory terrors of the religions; third, because he takes no part in government and politics and lives without ties, in peaceful retirement, a citizen of the world. --- Triết gia độc lập: thứ nhất vì họ không có nhu cầu, vì họ đã thoát ly được những của cải vật chất, và áp lực của thú năng, họ sống một đời khổ hạnh. Thứ hai, họ gan dạ anh hùng vì họ đã lột mặt nạ những kẻ giả mạo của thần thoại, mà các tôn giáo đã dựa vào để gieo rắc sự sợ sệt vào lòng người. Thứ ba, họ sống an nhàn ở một nơi riêng biệt không dính dáng tới một sự vật nào cả và chỉ sống như một công dân của thế giới.
