Quotes About Gabriel Marcel

The French philosopher Gabriel Marcel (1889–1973) distinguished between a problem, "something met which bars my passage" and "is before me in its entirety," and a mystery, "something in which I find myself caught up, and whose essence is not before me in its entirety."69

It is impossible to exaggerate how much better the formula es denkt in mir is than cogito ergo sum, which lets us in for pure subjectivism.

It is strange—and yet so clear—that I shall only continue to believe if I continue to deserve my faith. Amazing interdependence between believing and desert!

One can almost apply Gabriel Marcel's famous insight: life is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.

Man's mastery over nature, then, is a mastery which has less and less control over itself. . . . A world where techniques are paramount is a world given over to desire and fear; because every technique is there to serve some desire or fear.2 —Gabriel Marcel