Martin Buber Quotes

86 Sourced Quotes

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

Martin Buber
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.

Martin Buber
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

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

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

Martin Buber
What has to be given up is not the I, as most mystics suppose: this I is indispensable for any relationship, including the highest, which always presupposes an I and You.

Martin Buber
I shall teach you the best way to say Torah. You must cease to be aware of yourselves. You must be nothing but an ear that hears what the universe of the word is constantly saying within you. The moment you start hearing what you yourself are saying, YOU must stop.

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

Martin Buber
One must be truly able to say I in order to know the mystery of the Thou in its whole truth.

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

Martin Buber
You do not attain to knowledge by remaining on the shore and watching the foaming waves, you must make the venture and cast yourself in, you must swim, alert and with all your force, even if a moment comes when you think you are losing consciousness; in this way, and in no other, do you reach anthropological insight.

Martin Buber
Life, in that it is life, necessarily entails justice.

Martin Buber
The world is a spinning die, and everything turns and changes: man is turned into angel, and angel into man, and the head into the foot, and the foot into the head. Thus all things turn and spin and change, this into that, and that into this, the topmost to the undermost, and the undermost to the topmost. For at the root all is one, and salvation inheres in the change and return of things.

Martin Buber
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

Martin Buber
The I of the basic word I-Thou is different from that of the basic word I-It.

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.

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.

Martin Buber
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.

Martin Buber
To produce is to draw forth, to invent is to find, to shape is to discover...

Martin Buber
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.

Martin Buber
Jedes geeinzelte Du ist ein Durchblick zu ihm. Durch jedes geeinzelte Du spricht das Grundwort das Ewige an. Every particularThou is a glimpse through to the eternal Thou; by means of every particularThou the primary word addresses the eternal Thou. 164

Martin Buber
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.

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.

Martin Buber
When a man has made peace within himself, he will be able to make peace in the whole world.

Martin Buber
Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos.

Martin Buber