'To begin one of his books can feel like entering a lecture that has already started.'

Habermas as a historian of concepts

‘"You give with one hand and take with the other!" Certainly, for I do not want to give anything to you, but only demonstrate giving and taking.’

'… and he was told but these few words / which opened up his heart…'

Just a trace of snow.

'I wouldn't change anything about it, it was perfect, it was the way how a day would go.'

'… for discourse of illustration is cut off; recitals of examples are cut off; discourse of connection and order is cut off; descriptions of practice are cut off.'

'Once I saw electricity, I completely lost interest in nature. An unimproved thing.'

'You say, "It is grievous to have death right before one's eyes." In the first place, death should be under the eyes of the young as well as the old, for we are not summoned according to the census. Second, no one is so old as to be unjustified in hoping for one more day—and one day is a rung on the ladder of life.

One's entire life consists of parts, large circles enclosing smaller ones. One circle embraces all the rest; this corresponds to the span from birth to one's last day. A second encloses the years of young adulthood; another binds one's entire childhood in its circuit. Further, a year contains within itself all the time periods which, multiplied, make up one's life. A month is bounded by a tighter circle, a day by the smallest; yet even a day moves from a beginning to an end from sunrise to sunset. That was why Heraclitus, who got his nickname from the obscurity of his sayings, said,

  One day is equal to every day.

This is interpreted in different ways. One person says "equal" means "equal in number of hours"; this is true enough, for if a day is a period of twenty-four hours, all days are necessarily equal to each other, since night gains what is lost from daytime. Another says that one day is similar in nature to all other days, for even the longest stretch of time contains nothing that you do not find in a single day: both light and darkness. The regular alternation of the heavens gives us more nights and more days, but does not change their nature, although the day is sometimes briefer, sometimes more protracted. Every day, then, should be treated as though it were bringing up the rear, as though it were the consummation and fulfillment of one's life.'