Martin Buber Quotes

When a man grows aware of a new way in which to serve God, he should carry it around with him secretly, and without uttering it, for nine months, as though he were pregnant with it, and let others know of it only at the end of that time, as though it were a birth.

One who truly meets the world goes out also to God.

But when a man draws a lifeless thing into his passionate longing for dialogue, lending it independence and as it were a soul, then there may dawn in him the presentiment of a world-wide dialogue with the world-happening that steps up to him even in his environment, which consists partially of things. Or do you seriously think that the giving and taking of signs halts on the threshold of that business where an honest and open spirit is found?

Human life and humanity come into being in genuine encounters. The hope for this hour depends upon the renewal of the immediacy of dialogue among human beings.

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.

Solitude is the place of purification.

Persons appear by entering into relation to other persons.

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

Love is responsibility of an I for a You: in this consists what cannot consist in any feeling - the equality of all lovers.

All actual life is encounter.

Without being and remaining oneself, there is no love.

Creation happens to us, burns into us, changes us, we tremble and swoon, we submit. Creation - we participate in it, we encounter the creator, offer ourselves to him, helpers and companions.

If we had the power over the ends of the earth, it would not give us that fulfillment of existence which a quiet devoted relationship to nearby life can give us.

The basic word I-Thou can be spoken only with one's whole being. The concentration and fusion into a whole being can never be accomplished by me, can never be accomplished without me. I require a Thou to become; becoming I, I say Thou.

Nothing so tends to mask the face of God as religion; it can be a substitute for God himself.

The beating heart of the universe is holy joy.

Power abdicates only under the stress of counter-power.

In the story of the Creation we read: ". . . And behold, it was very good." But, in the passage where Moses reproves Israel, the verse says: "See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil." Where did the evil come from? Evil too is good. It is the lowest rung of perfect goodness. If you do good deeds, even evil will become good; but if you sin, evil will really become evil.

To love God truly, one must first love man. And if anyone tells you that he loves God and does not love his fellow-man, you will know that he is lying.

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.

All real living is meeting.

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

Dialogic is not to be identified with love. But love without dialogic, without real outgoing to the other, reaching to the other, the love remaining with itself - this is called Lucifer.

Everything is full of sacramental substance, everything. Each thing and each function is ever ready to light up into a sacrament.

Everyone must come out of his Exile in his own way.

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

Everyone has in him something precious that is in no one else.

If you want to raise a man from mud and filth, do not think it is enough to stay on top and reach a helping hand down to him. You must go all the way down yourself, down into mud and filth. Then take hold of him with strong hands and pull him and yourself out into the light.

And if there were a devil it would not be one who decided against God, but one who, in eternity, came to no decision.

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

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

Nothing can doom man but the belief in doom, for this prevents the movement of return.

Our relationships live in the space between us which is sacred.

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.

The historical religions have the tendency to become ends in themselves, and, as it were, to put themselves in God's place, and, in fact, there is nothing that is so apt to obscure God's face as a religion.