Top 15 Martin Buber Quotes

German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian (1878–1965)

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Martin Buber (February 8, 1878 – June 13, 1965) was a Jewish philosopher, theologian, story-teller, and teacher.

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Alternative Names: Buber

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All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.

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

When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.

The atheist staring from his attic window is often nearer to God than the believer caught up in his own false image of God.

The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.

We can be redeemed only to the extent to which we see ourselves.

I do not accept any absolute formulas for living. No preconceived code can see ahead to everything that can happen in a man's life. As we live, we grow and our beliefs change. They must change. So I think we should live with this constant discovery. We should be open to this adventure in heightened awareness of living. We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience.

Everyone must come out of his Exile in his own way.

All real living is meeting.

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.

The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings.

"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?

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..

Solitude is the place of purification.

There are three principles in a man's being and life:
The principle of thought, the principle of speech,
and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict
between me and my fellow-men is that I do not
say what I mean and I don't do what I say.