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Martin Buber

Martin Buber Books

Philosopher

I and Thou

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Hasidism

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On Judaism

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Buber's way to

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Writings

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“One must, however, take care not to understand this conversation with God--the conversation of which I have to speak in this book and in almost all the works which followed--as something happening solely alongside or above the everyday. God's speech to men penetrates what happens in the life of each one of us, and all that happens in the world around us, biographical and historical, and makes it for you and me into instruction, message, demand. Happening upon happening, situation upon situation, are enabled and empowered by the personal speech of God to demand of the human person that he take his stand and make his decision. Often enough we think there is nothing to hear, but long before we have ourselves put wax in our ears. (Postscript, October 1957)”

SpiritualitySpiritual LifeGod And ManI And Thou
Book:I and Thou
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“I consider a tree. I can look on it as a picture: stiff column in a shock of light, or splash of green shot with the delicate blue and silver of the background. I can perceive it as movement: flowing veins on clinging, pressing pith, suck of the roots, breathing of the leaves, ceaseless commerce with earth and air—and the obscure growth itself. I can classify it in a species and study it as a type in its structure and mode of life. I can subdue its actual presence and form so sternly that I recognise it only as an expression of law — of the laws in accordance with which a constant opposition of forces is continually adjusted, or of those in accordance with which the component substances mingle and separate. I can dissipate it and perpetuate it in number, in pure numerical relation. In all this the tree remains my object, occupies space and time, and has its nature and constitution. It can, however, also come about, if I have both will and grace, that in considering the tree I become bound up in relation to it. The tree is now no longer It. I have been seized by the power of exclusiveness. To effect this it is not necessary for me to give up any of the ways in which I consider the tree. There is nothing from which I would have to turn my eyes away in order to see, and no knowledge that I would have to forget. Rather is everything, picture and movement, species and type, law and number, indivisibly united in this event. Everything belonging to the tree is in this: its form and structure, its colours and chemical composition, its intercourse with the elements and with the stars, are all present in a single whole. The tree is no impression, no play of my imagination, no value depending on my mood; but it is bodied over against me and has to do with me, as I with it — only in a different way. Let no attempt be made to sap the strength from the meaning of the relation: relation is mutual.”

IThou
Book:I and Thou
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“Greatness by nature includes a power, but not a will to power. ... The great man, whether we comprehend him in the most intense activity of his work or in the restful equipoise of his forces , is powerful, involuntarily and composedly powerful, but he is not avid for power. What he is avid for is the realization of what he has in mind , the incarnation of the spirit .”

MenMindSpiritForcePowerfulPowerGreatnessActivityIntenseRealizationGreat MenIncarnationWill PowerAvidRestful
Book:Between Man and Man
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“In philosophical anthropology, ... where the subject is man in his wholeness, the investigator cannot content himself, as in anthropology as an individual science, with considering man as another part of nature and with ignoring the fact that he, the investigator, is himself a man and experiences this humanity in his inner experience in a way that he simply cannot experience any part of nature.”

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Book:On Intersubjectivity and Cultural Creativity
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“The concept of guilt is found most powerfully developed even in the most primitive communal forms which we know... the man is guilty who violates one of the original laws which dominate the society and which are mostly derived from a divine founder; the boy who is accepted into the tribal community and learns its laws, which bind him thenceforth, learns to promise; this promise is often given under the sign of death, which is symbolically carried out on the boy, with a symbolical rebirth.”

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Author:Martin Buber
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“About what mainly constituted what you ask, it was something other. It was just a certain inclination to meet people. And as far as possible, to change something in the other, but also to let me be changed by him. At any event, I had no resistance, I put no resistance to it. I already began as a young man. I felt I have not the right to want to change another if I am not open to be changed by him as far as it is legitimate.”

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Author:Martin Buber
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“Since the primary motive of the evil is disguise, one of the places evil people are most likely to be found is within the church. What better way to conceal one's evil from oneself, as well as from others, than to be a deacon or some other highly visible form of Christian within our culture? ... I do not mean to imply that the evil are anything other than a small minority among the religious or that the religious motives of most people are in any way spurious. I mean only that evil people tend to gravitate toward piety for the disguise and concealment it can offer them.”

PeopleWayWellsMeanChristianFormCultureEvilFoundChurchReligiousAtheismOffersOneselfPositive AtheismPrimariesMotiveVisibleMinoritiesDisguisePietyBetter WaysEvil PeopleConcealmentDeacons
Author:Martin Buber
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“Here is the infallible test. Imagine yourself in a situation where you are alone, wholly alone on earth, and you are offered one of the two, books or men. I often hear men prizing their solitude but that is only because there are still men somewhere on earth even though in the far distance. I knew nothing of books when I came forth from the womb of my mother, and I shall die without books, with another human hand in my own. I do, indeed, close my door at times and surrender myself to a book, but only because I can open the door again and see a human being looking at me.”

MenHumansStillsI CanTwoBookHandsEarthMotherDiesMy OwnHuman BeingsSituationImagineDoorsAtheismSolitudeTestsDistancePositive AtheismSurrenderWhere You AreWombBecause I CanInfallibleHuman HandsFar Distance
Book:Pointing the way: collected essays. Edited and translated with an introd. by Maurice S. Friedman
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“Religion means goal and way, politics implies end and means. The political end is recognizable by the fact that it may be attained--in success--and its attainment is historically recorded. The religious goal remains, even in man's highest experiences, that which simply provides direction on the mortal way; it never enters into historical consummation.”

MenWayMayMeanEndsFactsPoliticalReligionPoliticsGoalReligiousHighestRemainsHistoricalMortalsAttainmentEnds And Means
Book:Pointing the way: collected essays. Edited and translated with an introd. by Maurice S. Friedman
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