Martin Buber Quotes
Martin Buber was a 20th-century Austrian-born Israeli Jewish philosopher and one of the most influential figures of modern Jewish religious thought. His 1923 book Ich und Du, translated as I and Thou, distinguished two fundamental modes of human relation: the I-It relation in which the other is treated as an object, and the I-Thou relation in which the other is encountered as a subject in mutual presence. The quotes below are attributed to Martin Buber, organized by topic.
Browse Martin Buber by topic
Martin Buber on Death
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“Before his death, Rabbi Zusya said, "In the coming world, they will not ask me: 'Why were you not Moses?' They will ask me: 'Why were you not Zusya?”
Tales of the Hasidim (1947), 1991 Ebook edition, p.251, as quoted in Jewish Currents .
Martin Buber on Freedom
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“God ... desires His creature to be able to oppose Him. He has given that creature freedom. ... When man turns away from evil with that whole measure of power with which he is able to rebel against God, then he has truly turned to God.”
For The Sake of Heaven(1945) | p. 44
Martin Buber on God
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Attributed to Martin Buber:
“The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than the believer caught up in his own false image of God.”
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“In the presence of God himself man stands always like a solitary tree in the wilderness.”
For The Sake of Heaven(1945) | p. 95 -
“When we desire to lead men to God, we must not simply overthrow their idols. In each of these images we must seek to discover what divine quality he who carved it sought.”
For The Sake of Heaven(1945) | p. 117 -
“All names of God remain hallowed because they have been used not only to speak of God but also to speak to him.”
I and Thou(1923) -
“Avoid melancholy with all your might. It hurts the service of God more than sin. Satan takes less pleasure in sin than in a man's melancholy over having sinned again and so feeling that he is a slave to sin. Thus the Evil One has caught the poor soul in the net of despair.”
For The Sake of Heaven(1945) | Rabbi Jaacob Yitzchak, p. 7 -
“The realer religion is, so much the more it means its own overcoming. It wills to cease to be the special domain "Religion" and wills to become life. It is concerned in the end not with specific religious acts, but with redemption from all that is specific.”
Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy(1952) | p. 34
Martin Buber on Justice
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“Life , in that it is life, necessarily entails justice .”
Politics and Morality" in Be'ayot (April 1945), as published in A Land of Two Peoples : Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs (1983) edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr, p. 169
Martin Buber on Knowledge
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“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
The Legend of the Baal-Shem (1955),1995 edition, p. 36 -
“The philosophical anthropologist … can know the wholeness of the person and through it the wholeness of man only when he does not leave his subjectivity out and does not remain an untouched observer.”
What is Man? (1938) | p. 148 -
“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.”
Eclipse of God: Studies in the Relation Between Religion and Philosophy(1952) | p. 6
Martin Buber on Life
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“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.”
Our Reply" (September 1945), as published in A Land of Two Peoples : Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs (1983) edited by Paul Mendes-Flohr, p. 178 | Variant translation: Only a true peace with neighboring peoples can render possible a common development of this portion of the earth as a vanguard of the awakening of the Near East. -
“In the ice of solitude man becomes most inexorably a question to himself, and just because the question pitilessly summons and draws into play his most secret life he becomes an experience to himself.”
What is Man? (1938) | p. 150 -
“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.”
I and Thou(1923)
Martin Buber on Love
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“All real living is meeting.”
Alles wirkliche Leben ist Begegnung. -
Attributed to Martin Buber:
“When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.”
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Attributed to Martin Buber:
“The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings.”
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“Through the Thou a person becomes I.”
I and Thou, 1923 -
“Every morning I shall concern myself anew about the boundary Between the love - deed -Yes and the power -deed-No And pressing forward honor reality . We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world , So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction , Love powerfully.”
Power and Love" (1926) -
“Power and Love" (1926)”
Every morning I shall concern myself anew about the boundary Between the love - deed -Yes and the power -deed-No And pressing forward honor reality . We cannot avoid Using power, Cannot escape the compulsion To afflict the world , So let us, cautious in diction And mighty in contradiction , Love powerfully. -
“It is the highest service to submit the evil impulse to God through the power of love.”
For The Sake of Heaven(1945) | p. 45 -
“God ... demands everything, in order to give everything anew to him who loves Him, after that loving has truly given up all.”
For The Sake of Heaven(1945) | p. 45
Martin Buber on Mind
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Attributed to Martin Buber:
“There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action.”
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Attributed to Martin Buber:
“Solitude is the place of purification.”
Martin Buber on Nature
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“Variant translation: Only a true peace with neighboring peoples can render possible a common development of this portion of the earth as a vanguard of the awakening of the Near East.”
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. -
“Greatness by nature includes a power , but not a will to power.”
Between Man and Man(1965) | p. 150
Martin Buber on Time
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“The prophet is appointed to oppose the king, and even more: history .”
BBC radio broadcast (1962), as quoted in The Great Thoughts (1984) by George Seldes
Martin Buber on Truth
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“Man must be free of it all, of his bad conscience and of the bad salvation from this conscience in order to become in truth the way. Now , he no longer promises others the fulfillment of his duties , but promises himself the fulfillment of man.”
What is Man? (1938) | p. 178