Martin Buber
Martin Buber
Martin Buberwas an Austrian-born Israeli Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I–Thou relationship and the I–It relationship. Born in Vienna, Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy. In 1902, he became the editor of the weekly Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist movement, although he later withdrew from organizational work in Zionism. In...
NationalityGerman
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth8 February 1878
CountryGermany
Persons appear by entering into relation to other persons.
To be old can be glorious if one has not unlearned how to begin.
Everyone has in him something precious that is in no one else.
Here is the infallible test. Imagine yourself in a situation where you are alone, wholly alone on earth, and you are offered one of the two, books or men. I often hear men prizing their solitude but that is only because there are still men somewhere on earth even though in the far distance. I knew nothing of books when I came forth from the womb of my mother, and I shall die without books, with another human hand in my own. I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human being looking at me.
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?
He who loves brings God and the World together.
What has to be given up is not the I, but that drive for self-affirmation which impels man to flee from the unreliable, unsolid, unlasting, unpredictable, dangerous world of relation into the having of things.
The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is a divine meaning of the world, of man, of human persons, of you and me.
So long as you "have" yourself, have yourself as an object, your experience of man is only as of a thing among things.
When a man has made peace within himself, he will be able to make peace in the whole world.
The true meaning of love one's neighbor is not that it is a command from God which we are to fulfill, but that through it and in it we meet God.
How would man exist if God did not need him, and how would you exist? You need God in order to be, and God needs you - for that is the meaning of your life.
This is the eternal origin of art that a human being confronts a form that wants to become a work through him. Not a figment of his soul but something that appears to the soul and demands the soul's creative power. What is required is a deed that a man does with his whole being..
There is something that can be found in one place. It is a great treasure which may be called the fulfillment of existence. The place where this treasure can be found is the place where one stands