Martin Buber Quotes (27 Quotes)



    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.


    The ones 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.

    There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say.


    We can learn to be whole by saying what we mean and doing what we say.

    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.

    The prophet is appointed to oppose the kind, and even more history.


    The law is not thrust upon man; it rests deep within him, to waken when the call comes.

    Power abdicates only under stress of counter-power.

    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.

    An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language.

    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

    For sin is just this, what man cannot by its very nature do with his whole being; it is possible to silence the conflict in the soul, but it is not possible to uproot it.

    I don't like religion much, and I am glad that in the Bible the word is not to be found.


    Without distance there is no dialogue between the two.

    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 face looking at me.

    The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings.

    To be old can be glorious if one has not unlearned how to begin.

    When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.

    All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

    The perfection of any matter, the highest or the lowest, touches on the divine.

    Eclipse of the light of heaven, eclipse of God - such indeed is the character of the historic hour through which the world is now passing

    A person cannot approach the divine by reaching beyond the human. To become human, is what this individual person, has been created for.

    God wants man to fulfill his commands as a human being and with the quality peculiar to human beings.


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