222 Quotes by Martin Buber

I have to tell it again and again: I have no doctrine. I only point out something. I point out reality, I point out something in reality which has not or too little been seen. I take him who listens to me at his hand and lead him to the window. I push open the window and point outside. I have no doctrine, I carry on a dialogue.

Only men who are capable of saying Thou [an attitude of deep respect] to one another can truly say we with one another.

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.

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.

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.

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.

When we encounter another individual truly as a person, not as an object for use, we become fully human.

We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience.

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.