„There are moments in life where the question of knowing whether one might think otherwise than one thinks and perceive otherwise than one sees is indispensable if one is to continue to observe or reflect… What is philosophy today… if it does not consist in, instead of legitimizing what we already know, undertaking to know how and how far it might be possible to think otherwise?… The ‘essay’ —which must be understood as a transforming test of oneself in the play of truth and not as a simplifying appropriation of someone else for the purpose of communication—is the living body of philosophy, if, at least, philosophy is today still what it was once, that is to say, an askesis, an exercise of the self, in thought.“

— Michel Foucault

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„There are times inlife when the question of knowing if one can think differentlythan one thinks, and perceive differently than one sees, isabsolutely necessary if one is to go on looking and reflectingat all.“
— Michel Foucault
„The Study of philosophy is not that we may know what men have thought, but what the truth of things is.“
— Thomas Aquinas
„"What is truth?" is a fundamental question. But what is it compared to "How to endure life?" And even this one pales beside the next: "How to endure oneself?" - That is the crucial question in which no one is in a position to give us an answer.“
— Emil M. Cioran
„See first, think later, then test. But always see first. Otherwise you will only see what you were expecting. Most scientists forget that.“
— Douglas Adams
„He who does not know what the world is, does not know where he is. And he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know who he is, nor what the world is. But he who has failed in any one of these things could not even say for what purpose he exists himself. What then dost thou think of him who [avoids or] seeks the praise of those who applaud, of men who know not either where they are or who they are?“
— Marcus Aurelius
„To know oneself is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against Truth, and not the other way around. The first product of self-knowledge is humility…“
— Flannery O’Connor