Quote

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.

Martin Buber

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Martin Buber
Age: 87 †
Born: 1878
Born: February 8
Died: 1965
Died: June 13
Bible Translator
Educator
Existentialist
Literary Editor
Pedagogue
Philosopher
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Vienna
Austria
Men
Unique
Potentialities
Already
Recurring
Greatest
Foremost
Another
Unprecedented
Even
Repetition
Every
Achieved
Something
Task
Never
Tasks
Actualization

More quotes by Martin Buber

Image
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.
Martin Buber
Image
Play is the exultation of the possible.
Martin Buber
Image
The beating heart of the universe is holy joy.
Martin Buber
Image
To him who knows how to read the legend, it conveys more truth than the chronicle.
Martin Buber
Image
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.
Martin Buber
Image
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.
Martin Buber
Image
I don't like religion much, and I am glad that in the Bible the word is not to be found.
Martin Buber
Image
Power abdicates only under the stress of counter-power.
Martin Buber
Image
One need ask only 'What for? What am I to unify my being for?' The reply is: Not for my own sake.
Martin Buber
Image
And if there were a devil it would not be one who decided against God, but one who, in eternity, came to no decision.
Martin Buber
Image
Egos appear by setting themselves apart from other egos.Persons appear byentering into relationwith other persons.
Martin Buber
Image
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.
Martin Buber
Image
I'm not sure I can take your advice. You are dealing with English Gentlemen. We are dealing with monsters.
Martin Buber
Image
God dwells wherever man lets Him in.
Martin Buber
Image
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.
Martin Buber
Image
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.
Martin Buber
Image
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.
Martin Buber
Image
We can be redeemed only to the extent to which we see ourselves.
Martin Buber
Image
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.
Martin Buber
Image
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.
Martin Buber