Quotes from Paul Tillich

Fear is the absence of faith.

Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.

Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.

Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of being alone. It has created the word loneliness to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word solitude to express the glory of being alone.

We are known in a depth of darkness through which we ourselves do not even dare to look. And at the same time, we are seen in a height of a fullness which surpasses our highest vision.

One cannot be strong without love. For love is not an irrelevant emotion; it is the blood of life.

I loved thee beautiful and kind, And plighted an eternal vow; So altered are thy face and mind, t'were perjury to love thee now!

Love that cares, listens.

There is no love which does not become help.

For love ... is the blood of life, the power of reunion in the separated.

...history has shown that the most terrible crimes against love have been committed in the name of fanatically defended doctrines.

Courage is a greater virtue than love. At best, it takes courage to love.

If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song.

The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority.

Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundations and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received.

There is faith in every serious doubt, namely, the faith in the truth as such, even if the only truth we can express is our lack of truth.

Love is the infinite which is given to the finite.

Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.

Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being.

Boredom is rage spread thin.

"You are accepted!" ... accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask the name now, perhaps you will know it later. Do not try to do anything, perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything, do not perform anything, do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.

The character of human life, like the character of the human condition, like the character of all life, is "ambiguity": the inseparable mixture of good and evil, the true and false, the creative and destructive forces - both individual and social.

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.

Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life.