Quotes from Martin Buber

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.

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.

And how shall we be able to tell whether he is a true zaddik?" The Baal Shem replied. "Ask him to advise you what to do to keep unholy thoughts from disturbing you in your prayers and studies. If he gives you advice, then you will know that he belongs to those who are of no account. For this is the service of men in the world to the very hour of their death; to struggle time after time with the extraneous, and time after time to uplift and fit it into the nature of the Divine Name.

The most beautiful life that has been imagined is the life of the knight Don Quixote who created danger where he did not find it. But more beautiful still is the lived life of him who finds danger in all places. All creation stands on the edge of being; all creation is risk. He who does not risk his soul can only ape the creator.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

One who truly meets the world goes out also to God.

The abyss and the light of the world, Time's need and the craving for eternity, Vision, event, and poetry: Was and is dialogue with you.

Thus the poet is the messenger of God and of the earth and is at home in the two spheres. The force of fire is his force; it burns in contradiction, and it shines in unity. Like Enoch, of whom a legend tells that he was transformed from flesh to fire; his bones are glowing coals, but his eyelashes are the splendor of the firmament.

In order to speak to the world what I have heard, I am not bound to step into the street. I may remain standing in the door of my ancestral house. …

By the term short story I mean the recital of a destiny which is represented in a single incident; by anecdote the recital of a single incident which illumines an entire destiny.

There is something that can only be found in one place. It is a great treasure, which may be called the fulfilment of existence. The place where this treasure can be found is the place on which one stands.

Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos.

When we encounter another individual truly as a person, not as an object for use, we become fully human

In adolescence students are suddenly turned loose on books worth reading, but generally don't know how to read them.

Rabbi Heshel said: "A man should be like a vessel that willingly receives what its owner pours into it, whether it be wine or vinegar.

Of Enoch, who walked with Elohim, it is told that he had become one of the angels who was all eyes and wings. Thus is the poet. Everything in him perceives the things, and everything in him flies past the things. He is wholly in the one thing that he experiences, and yet is already and still in all the others at the same time.

is even worse than fear for oneself. The shadows of madness became longer as the day progressed, and even though it was certain that crime could have no permanence, it was unfortunately uncertain how long and how far God would permit this trial to go, for I am sorry to say that in history there are many examples of extended periods of darkness.

If you cannot get across it, you must get across it, nevertheless.

The basic word I-You can only be spoken with one's whole being.