“The history of philosophy is not, like the history of the sciences, to be studied with the intellect alone. That which is receptive in us and that which impinges upon us from history is the reality of man's being, unfolding itself in thought.”
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The community of masses of human beings has produced an order of life in regulated channels which connects individuals in a technically functioning organisation, but not inwardly from the historicity of their souls.
Karl Jaspers 
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Only then, approaching my fortieth birthday, I made philosophy my life's work.
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Philosophy as practice does not mean its restriction to utility or applicability, that is, to what serves morality or produces serenity of soul.
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I discovered that the study of past philosophers is of little use unless our own reality enters into it. Our reality alone allows the thinker's questions to become comprehensible.
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My own being can be judged by the depths I reach in making these historical origins my own.
Karl Jaspers
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