Martin Buber Quotes
All real living is meeting. – Martin Buber
The world is not an obstacle on the way to God; it is the way. – Martin Buber
The You encounters me by grace. – Martin Buber
Whenever one person meets another in love, there begins a new world. – Martin Buber
The greatest thing one can do for another person is to validate their existence. – Martin Buber
Man wishes to be confirmed in his being by man, and wishes to have a presence in the being of the other… Secretly and bashfully he watches for a YES which allows him to be and which can come to him only from one human person to another. – Martin Buber
When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them. – Martin Buber
To love means to affirm the existence of the other person. – Martin Buber
When we encounter another person in their true being, we are like sudden grace to them. – Martin Buber
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. – Martin Buber
He who says God’s name is also taking his stand against idolatry. – Martin Buber
Everyone has in him something divine, something his own, a chance of perfection and strength in however small a sphere which God offers him to take or refuse. – Martin Buber
Our relationships exist on a spectrum from I-It to I-Thou. The goal is to move more towards I-Thou, where we truly see and acknowledge the other person as a unique individual. – Martin Buber
The effectiveness of work increases according to the extent to which we feel ourselves in community with others. – Martin Buber
Solitude is the place of purification. – Martin Buber
Every man’s foremost task is the actualization of his unique, unprecedented and never-recurring potentialities, and not the repetition of something that another, and be it even the greatest, has already achieved. – Martin Buber
Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one ‘object’ of love. – Martin Buber
Life is waiting for you, give your dreams a chance. – Martin Buber
By listening I learn. By seeing I know. – Martin Buber
The Thou meets me through grace — it is not found by seeking. – Martin Buber
Peace is not just the absence of war, it is the presence of justice. – Martin Buber
Man is either to be preserved or to be created, to be venerated as the be-all or to be overthrown as a cursed creature. – Martin Buber
The human person finds his perfection, his highest definition, in that encounter. – Martin Buber
Faith means: being grasped by the power of being, insofar as such power lays hold of our being and takes it as the object of its grasp, insofar as it takes our being to itself and brings it into the clasp and fold of being. – Martin Buber
Trust in reality rather than repression is to follow the way of redemption. – Martin Buber
Every human relationship brings the possibility of divine revelation. – Martin Buber
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. – Martin Buber
The human person is like a plant: as the plant responds to the sun and the wind, to the rain and the storms, even so every human person responds to God in true gratitude and in true freedom. – Martin Buber
The primary task of education is to ensure that the human person is not brought up against meaninglessness. – Martin Buber
Only between those who acknowledge each other as persons can real encounter occur. – Martin Buber
Loneliness is responsible for the crumbling of humanity. – Martin Buber
All other travelers on the open road experience the same kind of change, the inward departure, the separation from ordinary time and ordinary consciousness. – Martin Buber
We are not capable of living as Thou to other beings all the time, but we must strive to do so. – Martin Buber
To love someone means to see them as God intended them to be. – Martin Buber
The one who loves remains in God, and God remains in them. – Martin Buber
Only when a man sees Canaan as neglected Earth, devoted to idols, to filth and misery, will Canaan reveal itself anew as God’s earth, given to man for the purpose of serving Him as the God of the spirit and the God of righteousness have commanded. – Martin Buber
The real service we owe to others in our daily life, let us with eager readiness lay upon the altar before God. – Martin Buber
Regarded itself as the voice of the messianic kingdom, as the hereafter within time… A hint at the time of redemption. – Martin Buber
True confession is an opening of the door to agreement with the law of God. – Martin Buber
Every day should be at least a little adventure. – Martin Buber
The one who believes goes beyond the spectacle. – Martin Buber
Those who depend on God cannot be enslaved by man. – Martin Buber
Every action that we perform, if the intention is right, is a mitzvah. – Martin Buber
The blindfold of ignorance will no longer hang over the blindfold of the Law. – Martin Buber
Having a spiritual soul does not imply that the person does NOT have a physical body. – Martin Buber
God’s presence will not become only visible for externally observable things. – Martin Buber
Words are bridges that lead to happiness; Lord, Lord: they call out, looking towards you. – Martin Buber
Faith is not knowledge of material forces. Still less is faith knowledge of expedient armament. Faith is the readiness to eschew the averting of danger by exerting the utmost force in defense and throwing overboard the weapons intended for defense. – Martin Buber
Judaism is not a creed, it is a life. – Martin Buber
Man’s true freedom is to be a partner in creation; no one who likes a life devoid of it is really a human person. – Martin Buber