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I and Thou QUOTES

I and Thou QUOTES

21 " As long as the firmament of the You is spread over me, the tempests of causality cower at my heels, and the whirl of doom congeals.

The human being to whom I say You I do not experience. But i stand in relation to him, in the sacred basic word. Only when I step out of this do I experience him again. Experience is remoteness from You. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

22 " -- What, then, does one experience of the You?
-- Nothing at all. For one does not experience it.
-- What, then, does one know of the You?
-- Only everything. For one no longer knows particulars. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

23 " As long as love is “blind” - that is, as long as it does not see a whole being - it does not yet truly stand under the basic word of relation. Hatred remains blind by its very nature; one can hate only part of a being. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

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

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

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

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

26 " The basic word I-You can only be spoken with one’s whole being. The basic word I-It can never be spoken with one’s whole being. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

27 " Mundus vult decipi. The world winks at dishonesty. The world does not call it dishonesty. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

28 " Marriage, for instance, will never be given new life except by that out of which true marriage always arises, the revealing by two people of the Thou to one another. Out of this a marriage is built up by the Thou that is neither of the I’s. This is the metaphysical and metapsychical factor of love to which feelings of love are mere accompaniments. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

29 " That you need God more than anything, you know at all times in your heart. But don’t you know also that God needs you—in the fullness of his eternity, you? How would man exist if God did not need him, and how would you exist? You need God in order to be, and God needs you—for that which is the meaning of your life. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

30 " Spirit in its human manifestation is man’s response to his You. Man speaks in many tongues - tongues of language, of art, of action - but the spirit is one; it is response to the You that appears from the mystery and addresses us from the mystery. Spirit is word. And even as verbal speech may first become word in the brain of man and then become sound in his throat, although both are merely refractions of the true event because in truth language does not reside in man but man stands in language and speaks out of it - so it is with all words, all spirit. Spirit is not in the I but between I and You. It is not like the blood that circulates in you but like the air in which you breathe. Man lives in the spirit when he is able to respond to his You. He is able to do that when he enters into this relation with his whole being. It is solely by virtue of his power to relate that man is able to live in the spirit. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

31 " It was from Buber’s other writings that I learned what could also be found in I and Thou: the central commandment to make the secular sacred. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

32 " True beings are lived in the present, the life of objects is lived in the past. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

33 " The third (sphere in which the world of relation arises): Life with spiritual beings.

Here the relations is wrapped in a cloud but reveals itself, it lacks but creates language. We hear no You and yet addressed; we answer - creating, thinking, acting: with our being we speak the basic word, unable to say You with our mouth.

Bt how can we incorporate into the world of the basic word that lies outside language? "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

34 " One cannot divide one’s life between an actual relationship to God and an inactual I-It relationship to the world - praying to God in truth and utilizing the world. Whoever knows the world as something to be utilized knows God the same way. His prayers are a way of unburdening himself - and fall into the ears of the void. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

35 " The only possible relationship with God is to address him and to be addressed by him, here and now—or, as Buber puts it, in the present. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

36 " there is a hierarchy of deceptions. Near the bottom of the ladder is journalism: a steady stream of irresponsible distortions that most people find refreshing although on the morning after, or at least within a week, it will be stale and flat. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

37 " On a higher level we find fictions that men eagerly believe, regardless of the evidence, because they gratify some wish. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

38 " But it can also happen, if will and grace are joined, that as I contemplate the tree I am drawn into a relation, and the tree ceases to be an It. The power of exclusiveness has seized me.
This does not require me to forego any of the modes of contemplation. There is nothing that I must not see in order to see, and there is no knowledge that I must forget. Rather is everything, picture and movement, species and instance, law and number included and inseparably fused.
Whatever belongs to the tree is included: its form and its mechanics, its colors and its chemistry, its conversation with the elements and its conversation with the stars - all this in its entirety.
The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no aspect of a mood; it confronts me bodily and has to deal with me as I must deal with it - only differently.
One should not try to dilute the meaning of the relations: relation is reciprocity.
Does the tree then have consciousness, similar to our own? I have no experience of that. But thinking that you have brought this off in your own case, must you again divide the indivisible? What I encounter is neither the soul of a tree nor a dryad, but the tree itself. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

39 " Feelings are 'entertained'; love comes to pass. Feelings dwell in man; but man dwells in his love. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou

40 " The differences between Buber and Hegel far outnumber their similarities. But they are at one in their opposition to any otherworldliness, in their insistence on finding in the present whatever beauty and redemption there may be, and in their refusal to pin their hopes on any beyond. "

― Martin Buber , I and Thou