Martin Buber quotes - page 2

The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than the believer caught up in his own false image of God. (Martin Buber)
All real life is meeting. View quote
Martin Buber
The prophet is appointed to oppose the kind, and even more: history. View quote
Martin Buber
To be old can be glorious if one has not unlearned how to begin. View quote
Martin Buber
Man wishes to be confirmed in his being by man, and wishes to have a presence in the being of the other.... Secretly and bashfully he watches for a YES which allows him to be and which can come to him only from one human person to another. View quote
Martin Buber
Every man's foremost task is the actualization of his unique, unprecedented and never-recurring potentialities, and not the repetition of something that another, and be it even the greatest, has already achieved. View quote
Martin Buber
Mundus vult decipi: the world wants to be deceived. View quote
Martin Buber
So long as a man's power, that is, his capacity to realize what he has in mind, is bound to the goal, to the work, to the calling, it is, considered in itself, neither good nor evil, it is only a suitable or unsuitable instrument. But as soon as this bond with the goal is broken off or loosened, and the man ceases to think of power as the capacity to do something, but thinks of it as a possession, that is, thinks of power in itself, then his power, being cut off and self-satisfied, is evil; it is power withdrawn from responsibility, power which betrays the spirit, power in itself. View quote
Martin Buber
Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos. View quote
Martin Buber
To win a truly great life for the people of Israel, a great peace is necessary, not a fictitious peace, the dwarfish peace that is no more than a feeble intermission, but a true peace with the neighboring peoples, which alone can render possible a common development of this portion of the earth as the vanguard of the awakening Near East. View quote
Martin Buber
The realer religion is, so much the more it means its own overcoming. It wills to cease to be the special domain "Religion" and wills to become life. It is concerned in the end not with specific religious acts, but with redemption from all that is specific. (Martin Buber)
Whoever abhors the name and fancies that he is godless - when he addresses with his whole devoted being the Thou of his life that cannot be restricted by any other, he addresses God. View quote
Martin Buber
To be old is a glorious thing when one has not unlearned what it means to begin, this old man had perhaps first learned it thoroughly in old age. View quote
Martin Buber
The great man, whether we comprehend him in the most intense activity of his work or in the restful equipoise of his forces, is powerful, involuntarily and composedly powerful, but he is not avid for power. What he is avid for is the realization of what he has in mind, the incarnation of the spirit. View quote
Martin Buber
Dialogue and monologue are silenced. Bundled together, men march without Thou and without I, those of the left who want to abolish memory, and those of the right who want to regulate it: hostile and separated hosts, they march into the common abyss. View quote
Martin Buber
When we desire to lead men to God, we must not simply overthrow their idols. In each of these images we must seek to discover what divine quality he who carved it sought. View quote
Martin Buber
It is the highest service to submit the evil impulse to God through the power of love. View quote
Martin Buber
As the oil is in the olive, so is the teshuvah, repentance, hidden within sin. View quote
Martin Buber
God ... desires His creature to be able to oppose Him. He has given that creature freedom. ... When man turns away from evil with that whole measure of power with which he is able to rebel against God, then he has truly turned to God. View quote
Martin Buber
God ... demands everything, in order to give everything anew to him who loves Him, after that loving has truly given up all. View quote
Martin Buber
And if there were a devil it would not be one who decided against God, but one who, in eternity, came to no decision. (Martin Buber)
The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is divine meaning in the life of the world, of man, of human persons, of you and of me. View quote
Martin Buber
We can be redeemed only to the extent to which we see ourselves. View quote
Martin Buber
We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world, So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction, Love powerfully. View quote
Martin Buber
Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya? View quote
Martin Buber