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
The perpetual enemy of faith in the true God is not atheism (the claim that there is no God), but rather Gnosticism (the claim that God is known).
About what mainly constituted what you ask, it was something other. It was just a certain inclination to meet people. And as far as possible, to change something in the other, but also to let me be changed by him. At any event, I had no resistance, I put no resistance to it. I already began as a young man. I felt I have not the right to want to change another if I am not open to be changed by him as far as it is legitimate.
When I meet a man, I am not concerned about his opinions. I am concerned about the man.
I think no human being can give more than this. Making life possible for the other, if only for a moment.
Power abdicates only under the stress of counter-power.
We cannot avoid using power, cannot escape the compulsion to aflict the world so let us, cautious in diction and mighty in contradiction, love powerfully
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.
The one who count are those persons who-though they may be of little renown-respond to and are responsible for the continuation of the living spirit.
God is the mysterium tremendum that appears and overthrows, but he is also the mystery of the self-evident, nearer to me than my I.
As long as the firmament of the You is spread over me, the tempests of causality cower at my heels, and whirl of doom congeals.
When I confront a human being as my Thou and speak the basic word I-Thou to him, then he is no thing among things nor does he consist of things. He is no longer He or She, a dot in the world grid of space and time, nor a condition to be experienced and described, a loose bundle of named qualities. Neighborless and seamless, he is Thou and fills the firmament. Not as if there were nothing but he; but everything else lives in his light.
To produce is to draw forth, to invent is to find, to shape is to discover...
A story must be told in such a way that it constitutes help in itself. My grandfather was lame. Once they asked him to tell a story about his teacher. And he related how his teacher used to hop and dance while he prayed. My grandfather rose as he spoke, and he was so swept away by his story that he began to hop and dance to show how the master had done. From that hour he was cured of his lameness. That's how to tell a story.
Creation is not a hurdle on the road to God, it is the road itself.