Buber, Martin

"All real living is meeting."

"The I-Thou relationship is the primary word."

"When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them."

"The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through embracing, taking into our arms."

"Love is responsibility of an I for a Thou."

"Genuine responsibility exists only where there is real responding."

"Man wishes to be confirmed in his being by man, and wishes to have a presence in the being of the other."

"Spirit in man is that which makes him capable of turning to the other."

"One cannot take the I-Thou relation with the whole of being to heart without recognizing the presence of the mystery."

"The primary word I-It establishes the world of It."

"Every Thou becomes an It when the relationship is objectified."

"In the beginning is the relation."

"The world is twofold, in accordance with man's twofold attitude."

"Hasidism is not a doctrine but a life."

"Imagination is not a faculty of the poet alone, but an essential faculty of man."

"One person is a type of human being; a second is another type. But the third person is not just another type—he is unique."

"The meeting of two: eye to eye, face to face. And when you are near I will tear your eyes out and place them instead of mine, and you will tear my eyes out and will place them instead of yours, then I will look at you with your eyes and you will look at me with mine."

"Community is the being no longer side by side but with one another."

"All actual life is encounter."

"The single human being, in his whole reality, is the first fact of existence."

"The purpose of religion is not to put the world on a firm metaphysical basis, but to call for the redemption of the actual world in which we live."

"Beware of the barrenness of a busy life."

"The deed is not the object of will, but its work."

"God cannot be caught by any formula; he cannot be expressed in ideas."

"How can one tell another about one's life?"

"The fundamental fact of human existence is man with man."

"All philosophy originates in wonder."

"The more powerful and vital religion is, the more definitely it tends to supersede theologizing about God."

"Man is naturally and inevitably lonely."

"The bridge is as fine as a hair and as strong as an iron cable."