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I Have Learned A New Form Of Service From The Wars Of Frederick, King Of Prussia. It Is Not Necessary To Approach The Enemy In Order To Attack Him. In Fleeing From Him, It Is Possible To Circumvent Him As He Advances And Fall On Him From The Rear And Force Him To Surrender. What Is Needed Is Not To Strike Straight At Evil But To Withdraw To The Sources Of Divine Power, And From There To Circle Around Evil, Bend It And Transform It Into Its Opposite.

-Martin Buber

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I Have Learned A

Martin Buber

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I Have Learned A New Form Of Service From The Wars Of Frederick, King Of Prussia. It Is Not Necessary To Approach The Enemy In Order To Attack Him. In Fleeing From Him, It Is Possible To Circumvent Him As He Advances And Fall On Him From The Rear And Force Him To Surrender. What Is Needed Is Not To Strike Straight At Evil But To Withdraw To The Sources Of Divine Power, And From There To Circle Around Evil, Bend It And Transform It Into Its Opposite.

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For Sin Is Just This, What Man Cannot By Its Very Nature Do With His Whole Being; It Is Possible To Silence The Conflict In The Soul, But It Is Not Possible To Uproot It

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.

I Don't Like Religion Much, And I Am Glad That In The Bible The Word Is Not To Be Found.

We Should Also Pray For The Wicked Among The Peoples Of The World; We Should Love Them Too.

Every Person Born In This World Represents Something New, Something That Never Existed Before, Something Original And Unique.

If A Person Kills A Tree Before Its Time, It Is Like Having Murdered A Soul.-rabbi Nachman

You Do Not Attain To Knowledge By Remaining On The Shore And Watching The Foaming Waves, You Must Make The Venture And Cast Yourself In, You Must Swim, Alert And With All Your Force, Even If A Moment Comes When You Think You Are Losing Consciousness; In This Way, And In No Other, Do You Reach Anthropological Insight.

When A Man Grows Aware Of A New Way In Which To Serve God, He Should Carry It Around With Him Secretly, And Without Uttering It, For Nine Months, As Though He Were Pregnant With It, And Let Others Know Of It Only At The End Of That Time, As Though It Were A Birth.

To Be Old Can Be Glorious If One Has Not Unlearned How To Begin.

Eclipse Of The Light Of Heaven, Eclipse Of God - Such Indeed Is The Character Of The Historic Hour Through Which The World Is Now Passing

One Should Hallow All That One Does In One's Natural Life. One Eats In Holiness, Tastes The Taste Of Food In Holiness, And The Table Becomes An Altar. One Works In Holiness, And Raises Up The Sparks Which Hide Themselves In All Tools. One Walks In Holiness Across The Fields, And The Soft Songs Of All Herbs, Which They Voice To God, Enter Into The Song Of Our Soul.

This Is The Risk: The Primary Word Can Only Be Spoken With The Whole Being. He Who Gives Himself To It May Withhold Nothing Of Himself.

No Purpose Intervenes Between I And You, No Greed And No Anticipation; And Longing Itself Is Changed As It Plunges From The Dream Into Appearance. Every Means Is An Obstacle. Only Where All Means Have Disintegrated Encounters Occur.

The Future Stands In Need Of You In Order To Be Born.

When Two People Relate To Each Other Authentically And Humanly, God Is The Electricity That Surges Between Them.

Everything Is Full Of Sacramental Substance, Everything. Each Thing And Each Function Is Ever Ready To Light Up Into A Sacrament.

Power Abdicates Only Under The Stress Of Counter-power.

If We Had The Power Over The Ends Of The Earth, It Would Not Give Us That Fulfillment Of Existence Which A Quiet Devoted Relationship To Nearby Life Can Give Us.

I Shall Teach You The Best Way To Say Torah. You Must Cease To Be Aware Of Yourselves. You Must Be Nothing But An Ear That Hears What The Universe Of The Word Is Constantly Saying Within You. The Moment You Start Hearing What You Yourself Are Saying, You Must Stop.

The I Of The Basic Word I-thou Is Different From That Of The Basic Word I-it.

In The Story Of The Creation We Read: ". . . And Behold, It Was Very Good." But, In The Passage Where Moses Reproves Israel, The Verse Says: "see, I Have Set Before Thee This Day Life And Good, And Death And Evil." Where Did The Evil Come From? Evil Too Is Good. It Is The Lowest Rung Of Perfect Goodness. If You Do Good Deeds, Even Evil Will Become Good; But If You Sin, Evil Will Really Become Evil.

I'm Not Sure I Can Take Your Advice. You Are Dealing With English Gentlemen. We Are Dealing With Monsters.

One Cannot In The Nature Of Things Expect A Little Tree That Has Been Turned Into A Club To Put Forth Leaves.

Nothing So Tends To Mask The Face Of God As Religion; It Can Be A Substitute For God Himself.

The Salvation Of Man Does Not Lie In His Holding Himself Far Removed From The Worldly, But In Consecrating It To Holy, To Divine Meaning.

All Journeys Have Secret Destinations Of Which The Traveller Is Unaware.

In The Beginning Was The Relationship.

I Have Learned A New Form Of Service From The Wars Of Frederick, King Of Prussia. It Is Not Necessary To Approach The Enemy In Order To Attack Him. In Fleeing From Him, It Is Possible To Circumvent Him As He Advances And Fall On Him From The Rear And Force Him To Surrender. What Is Needed Is Not To Strike Straight At Evil But To Withdraw To The Sources Of Divine Power, And From There To Circle Around Evil, Bend It And Transform It Into Its Opposite.

Dialogic Is Not To Be Identified With Love. But Love Without Dialogic, Without Real Outgoing To The Other, Reaching To The Other, The Love Remaining With Itself - This Is Called Lucifer.

Nothing Can Doom Man But The Belief In Doom, For This Prevents The Movement Of Return.

God Made So Many Different Kinds Of People; Why Would God Allow Only One Way To Worship?

The Atheist Staring From His Attic Window Is Often Nearer To God Than The Believer Caught Up In His Own False Image Of God.

The Biblical Passage Which Says Of Abraham And The Three Visiting Angels: "and He Stood Over Them Under The Tree And They Did Eat" Is Interpreted By Rabbi Zusya To The Effect That Man Stands Above The Angels, Because He Knows Something Unknown To Them, Namely, That Eating May Be Hallowed By The Eater's Intention.... Any Natural Act, If Hallowed, Leads To God, And Nature Needs Man For What No Angel Can Perform On It, Namely, Its Hallowing.

God Dwells Wherever Man Lets Him In.

Read The Bible As Though It Were Something Entirely Unfamiliar, As Though It Had Not Been Set Before You Ready-made. Face The Book With A New Attitude As Something New.

What Is It That Is Eternal: The Primal Phenomenon, Present In The Here And Now, Of What We Call Revelation? It Is Man's Emerging From The Moment Of The Supreme Encounter, Being No Longer The Same As He Was When Entering Into It.

We Can Learn To Be Whole By Saying What We Mean And Doing What We Say.

There Is No Room For God In Him Who Is Full Of Himself.

Feelings Dwell In Man; But Man Dwells In His Love. That Is No Metaphor, But The Actual Truth. Love Does Not Cling To The I In Such A Way As To Have The Thou Only For Its " Content," Its Object; But Love Is Between I And Thou. The Man Who Does Not Know This, With His Very Being Know This, Does Not Know Love; Even Though He Ascribes To It The Feelings He Lives Through, Experiences, Enjoys, And Expresses.

The Perpetual Enemy Of Faith In The True God Is Not Atheism (the Claim That There Is No God), But Rather Gnosticism (the Claim That God Is Known).

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.

When I Confront A Human Being As My Thou And Speak The Basic Word I-thou To Him, Then He Is No Thing Among Things Nor Does He Consist Of Things. He Is No Longer He Or She, A Dot In The World Grid Of Space And Time, Nor A Condition To Be Experienced And Described, A Loose Bundle Of Named Qualities. Neighborless And Seamless, He Is Thou And Fills The Firmament. Not As If There Were Nothing But He; But Everything Else Lives In His Light.

No Limits Are Set To The Ascent Of Man, And To Each And Everyone The Highest Stands Open. Here It Is Only Your Personal Choice That Decides.

Solitude Is The Place Of Purification.

There Are People Of Spirit And There Are People Of Passion, Both Less Common Than One Might Think. Rarer Still Are The People Of Spirit And Passion. But Rarest Of All Is A Passionable Spirit.

To Begin With Oneself But Not To End With Onself. To Start From Oneself But Not To Aim At Oneself.

But It Can Also Happen, If Will And Grace Are Joined, That As I Contemplate The Tree I Am Drawn Into A Relation, And The Tree Ceases To Be An It. . . . Does The Tree Then Have Consciousness, Similar To Our Own? I Have No Experience Of That. But Thinking That You Have Brought This Off In Your Own Case, Must You Again Divide The Indivisible? What I Encounter Is Neither The Soul Of A Tree Nor A Dryad, But The Tree Itself.

In Spite Of All Similarities, Every Living Situation Has, Like A Newborn Child, A New Face, That Has Never Been Before And Will Never Come Again. It Demands Of You A Reaction That Cannot Be Prepared Beforehand. It Demands Nothing Of What Is Past. It Demands Presence, Responsibility; It Demands You.

Everything Depends On Inner Change; When This Has Taken Place, Then, And Only Then Does The World Change.

And If There Were A Devil It Would Not Be One Who Decided Against God, But One Who, In Eternity, Came To No Decision.

Man Is Like A Tree. If You Stand In Front Of A Tree And Watch It Incessantly, To See How It Grows, And To See How Much It Has Grown, You Will See Nothing At All. But Tend It At All Times, Prune The Runners And Keep It Free Of Beetles And Worms, And All In Good Time-it Will Come Into Its Growth. It Is The Same With Man: All That Is Necessary Is For Him To Overcome His Obstacles, And He Will Thrive And Grow. But It Is Not Right To Examine Him Hour After Hour To See How Much Has Already Been Added To His Stature.

I Do Not Accept Any Absolute Formulas For Living. No Preconceived Code Can See Ahead To Everything That Can Happen In A Man's Life. As We Live, We Grow And Our Beliefs Change. They Must Change. So I Think We Should Live With This Constant Discovery. We Should Be Open To This Adventure In Heightened Awareness Of Living. We Should Stake Our Whole Existence On Our Willingness To Explore And Experience.

The Work Produced Is A Thing Among Things, Able To Be Experienced And Described As A Sum Of Qualities. But From Time To Time It Can Face The Receptive Beholder In Its Whole Embodied Form.

The World Is Not Comprehensible, But It Is Embraceable: Through The Embracing Of One Of Its Beings.

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.

A Person Cannot Approach The Divine By Reaching Beyond The Human. To Become Human, Is What This Individual Person, Has Been Created For.

When People Come To You For Help, Do Not Turn Them Off With Pious Words, Saying, 'have Faith And Take Your Troubles To God.' Act Instead As Though There Were No God, As Though There Were Only One Person In The World Who Could Help -- Only Yourself.

As Long As The Firmament Of The You Is Spread Over Me, The Tempests Of Causality Cower At My Heels, And Whirl Of Doom Congeals.

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.

Creation Happens To Us, Burns Into Us, Changes Us, We Tremble And Swoon, We Submit. Creation - We Participate In It, We Encounter The Creator, Offer Ourselves To Him, Helpers And Companions.

A Human Being Becomes Whole Not In Virtue Of A Relation To Himself [only] But Rather In Virtue Of An Authentic Relation To Another Human Being(s).

The True Meaning Of Love One's Neighbor Is Not That It Is A Command From God Which We Are To Fulfill, But That Through It And In It We Meet God.

Meaning Of Love

He Who Desires To Become Aware Of The Hidden Light Must Lift The Feeling Of Fear Up To Its Source. And He Can Accomplish This If He Judges Himself And All He Does. For Then He Sheds All Fears And Lifts Fear That Has Fallen Down. But If He Does Not Judge Himself, He Will Be Judged From On High, And This Judgment Will Come Upon Him In The Guise Of Countless Things, And All The Things In The World Will Become Messengers Of God Who Carry Out The Judgment On This Man.

This Is The Eternal Origin Of Art That A Human Being Confronts A Form That Wants To Become A Work Through Him. Not A Figment Of His Soul But Something That Appears To The Soul And Demands The Soul's Creative Power. What Is Required Is A Deed That A Man Does With His Whole Being.

Human Life And Humanity Come Into Being In Genuine Encounters. The Hope For This Hour Depends Upon The Renewal Of The Immediacy Of Dialogue Among Human Beings.

God Is The "mysterium Tremendum," That Appears And Overthrows, But He Is Also The Mystery Of The Self-evident, Nearer To Me Than My I.

God Said To Abraham: "get Thee Out Of Thy Country, And From Thy Kindred, And From Thy Father's House, Unto The Land That I Will Show Thee." God Says To Man: "first, Get You Out Of Your Country, That Means The Dimness You Have Inflicted On Yourself. Then Out Of Your Birthplace, That Means Out Of The Dimness Your Mother Inflicted On You. After That, Out Of The House Of Your Father, That Means Out Of The Dimness Your Father Inflicted On You. Only Then Will You Be Able To Go To The Land That I Will Show You"

We Should Stake Our Whole Existence On Our Willingness To Explore And Experience.

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.

Jedes Geeinzelte Du Ist Ein Durchblick Zu Ihm. Durch Jedes Geeinzelte Du Spricht Das Grundwort Das Ewige An. Every Particularthou Is A Glimpse Through To The Eternal Thou; By Means Of Every Particularthou The Primary Word Addresses The Eternal Thou. 164

In The Ice Of Solitude Man Becomes Most Inexorably A Question To Himself, And Just Because The Question Pitilessly Summons And Draws Into Play His Most Secret Life He Becomes An Experience To Himself.

When We Rise Out Of [the Night] Into The New Life And There Begin To Receive The Signs, What Can We Know Of That Which - Of Him Who Gives Them To Us? Only What We Experience From Time To Time From The Signs Themselves. If We Name The Speaker Of This Speech God, Then It Is Always The God Of A Moment, A Moment God.

We Can Be Redeemed Only To The Extent To Which We See Ourselves.

Real Faith Means Holding Ourselves Open To The Unconditional Mystery Which We Encounter In Every Sphere Of Our Life And Which Cannot Be Comprised In Any Formula. Real Faith Means The Ability To Endure Life In The Face Of This Mystery.

The Real Struggle Is Not Between East And West, Or Capitalism And Communism, But Between Education And Propaganda.

Without Being And Remaining Oneself, There Is No Love.

This Is The Sacrifice: The Endless Possibility That Is Offered Up On The Altar Of The Form.

The Basic Word I-thou Can Be Spoken Only With One's Whole Being. The Concentration And Fusion Into A Whole Being Can Never Be Accomplished By Me, Can Never Be Accomplished Without Me. I Require A Thou To Become; Becoming I, I Say Thou.

All Names Of God Remain Hallowed Because They Have Been Used Not Only To Speak Of God But Also To Speak To Him.

Only Men Who Are Capable Of Saying Thou [an Attitude Of Deep Respect] To One Another Can Truly Say We With One Another.

Every Morning, I Shall Concern Myself Anew About The Boundary, Between The Love-deed-yes And The Power-deed-no, And Pressing Forward Honor Reality. We Cannot Avoid, Using Power, Cannot Escape The Compulsion, To Afflict The World, So Let Us, Cautious In Diction, And Mighty In Contradiction, Love Powerfully.

What Has To Be Given Up Is Not The I, As Most Mystics Suppose: This I Is Indispensable For Any Relationship, Including The Highest, Which Always Presupposes An I And You.

The Prophet Is Appointed To Oppose The Kind, And Even More: History.

Mundus Vult Decipi: The World Wants To Be Deceived.

The Tradition Of The Camp Fire Faces That Of The Pyramid.

Everyone Must Come Out Of His Exile In His Own Way.

What You Must Do Is Love Your Neighbor As Yourself. There Is No One Who Knows Your Many Faults Better Than You! But You Love Yourself Notwithstanding. And So You Must Love Your Neighbor, No Matter How Many Faults You See In Him.

The World Is Not Divine Sport, It Is Divine Destiny. There Is A Divine Meaning Of The World, Of Man, Of Human Persons, Of You And Me.

Love Is Responsibility Of An I For A You: In This Consists What Cannot Consist In Any Feeling - The Equality Of All Lovers.

Play Is The Exultation Of The Possible.

The World Is A Spinning Die, And Everything Turns And Changes: Man Is Turned Into Angel, And Angel Into Man, And The Head Into The Foot, And The Foot Into The Head. Thus All Things Turn And Spin And Change, This Into That, And That Into This, The Topmost To The Undermost, And The Undermost To The Topmost. For At The Root All Is One, And Salvation Inheres In The Change And Return Of Things.

God Cannot Be Seen, But He Can Listened To And Spoken To!

All Real Living Is Meeting.

The Law Is Not Thrust Upon Man; It Rests Deep Within Him, To Waken When The Call Comes.

There Is Something That Can Be Found In One Place. It Is A Great Treasure Which May Be Called The Fulfillment Of Existence. The Place Where This Treasure Can Be Found Is The Place Where One Stands

When A Man Has Made Peace Within Himself, He Will Be Able To Make Peace In The Whole World.

To Produce Is To Draw Forth, To Invent Is To Find, To Shape Is To Discover.

Our Relationships Live In The Space Between Us Which Is Sacred.

The Beating Heart Of The Universe Is Holy Joy.

When I Meet A Man, I Am Not Concerned About His Opinions. I Am Concerned About The Man.

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.

All Journeys Have Secret Destinations Of Which The Traveler Is Unaware.

An Animal's Eyes Have The Power To Speak A Great Language.

Before His Death, Rabbi Zusya Said "in The Coming World, They Will Not Ask Me: 'why Were You Not Moses?' They Will Ask Me: 'why Were You Not Zusya?

The Ones Who Count Are Those Persons Who - Though They May Be Of Little Renown - Respond To And Are Responsible For The Continuation Of The Living Spirit.

But When A Man Draws A Lifeless Thing Into His Passionate Longing For Dialogue, Lending It Independence And As It Were A Soul, Then There May Dawn In Him The Presentiment Of A World-wide Dialogue With The World-happening That Steps Up To Him Even In His Environment, Which Consists Partially Of Things. Or Do You Seriously Think That The Giving And Taking Of Signs Halts On The Threshold Of That Business Where An Honest And Open Spirit Is Found?

All Actual Life Is Encounter.

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 Face Looking At Me.

Feeling One "has"; Love Occurs.

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 .

Everyone Has In Him Something Precious That Is In No One Else.

I Think No Human Being Can Give More Than This. Making Life Possible For The Other, If Only For A Moment.

What Has To Be Given Up Is Not The I, But That Drive For Self-affirmation Which Impels Man To Flee From The Unreliable, Unsolid, Unlasting, Unpredictable, Dangerous World Of Relation Into The Having Of Things.

Dangerous World

From My Youth Onwards I Have Found In Jesus My Great Brother. That Christianity Has Regarded And Does Regard Him As God And Savior Has Always Appeared To Me A Fact Of The Highest Importance Which, For His Sake And My Own, I Must Endeavor To Understand . . . I Am More Than Ever Certain That A Great Place Belongs To Him In Israel's History Of Faith And That This Place Cannot Be Described By Any Of The Usual Categories.

Egos Appear By Setting Themselves Apart From Other Egos.persons Appear Byentering Into Relationwith Other Persons.

There Are Three Principles In A Man's Being And Life, The Principle Of Thought, The Principle Of Speech, And The Principle Of Action. The Origin Of All Conflict Between Me And My Fellow-men Is That I Do Not Say What I Mean And I Don't Do What I Say.

To Look Away From The World, Or To Stare At It, Does Not Help A Man To Reach God; But He Who Sees The World In Him Stands In His Presence.

How Would Man Exist If God Did Not Need Him, And How Would You Exist? You Need God In Order To Be, And God Needs You - For That Is The Meaning Of Your Life.

Inscrutably Involved, We Live In The Currents Of Universal Reciprocity.

So Long As You "have" Yourself, Have Yourself As An Object, Your Experience Of Man Is Only As Of A Thing Among Things.

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.

The Historical Religions Have The Tendency To Become Ends In Themselves, And, As It Were, To Put Themselves In God's Place, And, In Fact, There Is Nothing That Is So Apt To Obscure God's Face As A Religion.

To Love God Truly, One Must First Love Man. And If Anyone Tells You That He Loves God And Does Not Love His Fellow-man, You Will Know That He Is Lying.

As I Actualize, I Uncover.

Through The Thou A Person Becomes I.

You Should Carefully Observe The Way Toward Which Your Heart Draws You, Then Choose This Way With All Your Strength.

Every Person Born Into The World Represents Something New, Something That Never Existed Before, Something Original And Unique....if There Had Been Someone Like Her In The World, There Would Have Been No Need For Her To Be Born." --martin Buber As Quoted In Narrative Means For Sober Ends, By Jon Diamond, P.78

You Can Rake The Muck This Way, Rake The Muck That Way-- It Will Always Be Muck. Have I Sinned Or Have I Not Sinned? In The Time I Am Brooding Over It, I Could Be Stringing Pearls For The Delight Of Heaven

We May Listen To Our Inner Self-and Still Not Know Which Ocean We Hear Roaring.

Freedom And Destiny Are Solemnly Promised To One Another And Linked Together In Meaning.

It Pains Me To Speak Of God In The Third Person.

To Him Who Knows How To Read The Legend, It Conveys More Truth Than The Chronicle.

God Wants Man To Fulfill His Commands As A Human Being And With The Quality Peculiar To Human Beings.

If You Want To Raise A Man From Mud And Filth, Do Not Think It Is Enough To Stay On Top And Reach A Helping Hand Down To Him. You Must Go All The Way Down Yourself, Down Into Mud And Filth. Then Take Hold Of Him With Strong Hands And Pull Him And Yourself Out Into The Light.

One Need Ask Only 'what For? What Am I To Unify My Being For?' The Reply Is: Not For My Own Sake.

Persons Appear By Entering Into Relation To Other Persons.

Let Us, Cautious In Diction, And Mighty In Contradiction, Love Powerfully.

Meet The World With The Fullness Of Your Being, And You Shall Meet God. Of You Wish To Believe, Love.

I Have To Tell It Again And Again: I Have No Doctrine. I Only Point Out Something. I Point Out Reality, I Point Out Something In Reality Which Has Not Or Too Little Been Seen. I Take Him Who Listens To Me At His Hand And Lead Him To The Window. I Push Open The Window And Point Outside. I Have No Doctrine, I Carry On A Dialogue.

It Is Not The Nature Of The Task, But Its Consecration, That Is The Vital Thing.

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.

One Who Truly Meets The World Goes Out Also To God.

One Must Be Truly Able To Say I In Order To Know The Mystery Of The Thou In Its Whole Truth.

Creation Is Not A Hurdle On The Road To God, It Is The Road Itself.

A Story Must Be Told In Such A Way That It Constitutes Help In Itself. My Grandfather Was Lame. Once They Asked Him To Tell A Story About His Teacher. And He Related How The Holy Baal Shem Used To Hop And Dance While He Prayed. My Grandfather Rose As He Spoke, And He Was So Swept Away By His Story That He Himself Began To Hop And Dance To Show How The Master Had Done. From That Hour He Was Cured Of His Lameness. That's How To Tell A Story.

It Is Usual To Think Of Good And Evil As Two Poles, Two Opposite Directions, The Antithesis Of One Another...we Must Begin By Doing Away With This Convention.

The Perfection Of Any Matter, The Highest Or The Lowest, Touches On The Divine.

The Philosophical Anthropologist ... Can Know The Wholeness Of The Person And Through It The Wholeness Of Man Only When He Does Not Leave His Subjectivity Out And Does Not Remain An Untouched Observer.

He Who Loves Brings God And The World Together.

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