Martin Buber - I and Thou

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

Martin Buber
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.

Martin Buber
This is the risk: the primary word can only be spoken with the whole being. He who gives himself to it may withhold nothing of himself.

Martin Buber
What is it that is eternal: the primal phenomenon, present in the here and now, of what we call revelation? It is man's emerging from the moment of the supreme encounter, being no longer the same as he was when entering into it.

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

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
This is the sacrifice: the endless possibility that is offered up on the altar of the form...

Martin Buber
Freedom and destiny are solemnly promised to one another and linked together in meaning.

Martin Buber
Some would deny any legitimate use of the word God because it has been misused so much. Certainly it is the most burdened of all human words. Precisely for that reason it is the most imperishable and unavoidable. And how much weight has all erroneous talk about God's nature and works (although there never has been nor can be any such talk that is not erroneous) compared with the one truth that all men who have addressed God really meant him? For whoever pronounces the word God and really means Thou, addresses, no matter what his delusion, the true Thou of his life that cannot be restricted by any other and to whom he stands in a relationship that includes all others.

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

Martin Buber
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..

Martin Buber
Whoever abhors the name and fancies that he is godless — when he addresses with his whole devoted being the Thou of his life that cannot be restricted by any other, he addresses God.

Martin Buber
The world is not divine sport, it is divine destiny. There is divine meaning in the life of the world, of man, of human persons, of you and of me.
Creation happens to us, burns itself into us, recasts us in burning — we tremble and are faint, we submit. We take part in creation, meet the Creator, reach out to Him, helpers and companions.

Martin Buber
All names of God remain hallowed because they have been used not only to speak of God but also to speak to him.

Martin Buber
But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It.... Does the tree then have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the indivisible? What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself.

Martin Buber
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.

Martin Buber
No purpose intervenes between I and You, no greed and no anticipation; and longing itself is changed as it plunges from the dream into appearance. Every means is an obstacle. Only where all means have disintegrated encounters occur.

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

Martin Buber
Inscrutably involved, we live in the currents of universal reciprocity.

Martin Buber
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.

Martin Buber
The Thou encounters me by grace — it cannot be found by seeking. But that I speak the basic word to it is a deed of my whole being, is my essential deed.

Martin Buber
Persons appear by entering into relation to other persons.

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

Martin Buber