222 Quotes by Martin Buber

If a man wishes to guide the people in his house the right way, he must not grow angry at them. For anger does not only make one’s soul impure; it transfers impurity to the souls of those with whom one is angry.

Feeling one “has”; love occurs.

And how shall we be able to tell whether he is a true zaddik?” The Baal Shem replied. “Ask him to advise you what to do to keep unholy thoughts from disturbing you in your prayers and studies. If he gives you advice, then you will know that he belongs to those who are of no account. For this is the service of men in the world to the very hour of their death; to struggle time after time with the extraneous, and time after time to uplift and fit it into the nature of the Divine Name.

If a person kills a tree before its time, it is like having murdered a soul.-Rabbi Nachman.

What is manifold is often frightening because it is not neat and simple. Men prefer to forget how many possibilities are open to them.

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

You can rake the muck this way, rake the muck that way – it will always be muck. Have I sinned or have I not sinned? In the time I am brooding over it, I could be stringing pearls for the delight of Heaven.

Whoever says You does not have something; he has nothing. But he stands in relation.

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.