16 Quotes & Sayings By Martin Buber

Martin Buber (1878-1965) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. He is considered one of the fathers of existentialism, a form of religious philosophy which emphasizes the human search for authenticity and meaning in an absurd world. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1964.

The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer...
1
The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than the believer caught up in his own false image of God. Martin Buber
All actual life is encounter.
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All actual life is encounter. Martin Buber
We can be redeemed only to the extent to which...
3
We can be redeemed only to the extent to which we see ourselves. Martin Buber
Everyone must come out of his Exile in his own...
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Everyone must come out of his Exile in his own way. Martin Buber
A great relationship ... breaches the barriers of a lofty...
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A great relationship ... breaches the barriers of a lofty solitude, subdues its strict law, and throws a bridge from self-being to self-being across the abyss of dread of the universe. Martin Buber
6
Trust, trust in the world, because this human being exists - that is the most inward achievement of the relation in education. Because this human being exists, meaninglessness, however hard pressed you are by it, cannot be the real truth. Because this human being exists, in the darkness the light lies hidden, in fear salvation, and in the callousness of one's fellow-men the great Love. Martin Buber
7
When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them. Martin Buber
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All real living is meeting. Martin Buber
9
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. Martin Buber
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An animal's eyes have the power to speak a great language. Martin Buber
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But a person, I would say, is an individual living really with the world. And 'with' the world, I don't mean in the world- just in real contact, in real reciprocity with the world in all the points in which the world can meet man. Martin Buber
12
But when a man draws a lifeless thing into his passionate longing for dialogue, lending it independence and as it were a soul, then there may dawn in him the presentiment of a world-wide dialogue with the world-happening that steps up to him even in his environment, which consists partially of things. Or do you seriously think that the giving and taking of signs halts on the threshold of that business where an honest and open spirit is found? . Martin Buber
13
The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings. Martin Buber
14
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
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All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. Martin Buber