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The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the threat of non-being, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself.

Paul Tillich

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Paul Tillich
Age: 79 †
Born: 1886
Born: August 20
Died: 1965
Died: October 22
Philosopher
Theologian
University Teacher
Paul Johannes Oskar Tillich
Paul Johannes Tillich
Threat
Existence
Cannot
Eliminated
Finite
Belongs
Basic
Anxiety

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Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being.
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Knowledge of that which concerns us infinitely is possible only in an attitude of infinite concern.
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Religion is the state of being grasped by an ultimate concern, a concern which qualifies all other concerns as preliminary and which itself contains the answer to the question of a meaning of our life.
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The fatal pedagogical error is to throw answers like stones at the heads of those who have not yet asked the questions.
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Only the philosophical question is perennial, not the answers.
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The abundance of a grateful heart gives honor to God even if it does not turn to Him in words. An unbeliever who is filled with thanks for his very being has ceased to be an unbeliever.
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Plato ... teaches the separation of the human soul from its home in the realm of pure essences. Man is estranged from what he essentially is. His existence in a transitory world contradicts his essential participation in the eternal world of ideas .
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Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude.
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If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song.
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In this respect fundamentalism has demonic traits. It destroys the humble honesty of the search for truth, it splits the conscience of its thoughtful adherents, and it makes them fanatical because they are forced to suppress elements of truth of which they are dimly aware
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Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundations and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received.
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Enthusiasm for the universe, in knowing as well as in creating, also answers the question of doubt and meaninglessness. Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge. And meaninglessness is no threat so long as enthusiasm for the universe and for man as its center is alive.
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There is faith in every serious doubt, namely, the faith in the truth as such, even if the only truth we can express is our lack of truth.
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Doubt is not the opposite of faith it is one element of faith.
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I loved thee beautiful and kind, And plighted an eternal vow So altered are thy face and mind, t'were perjury to love thee now!
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Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny.
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man is free, in so far as he has the power of contradicting himself and his essential nature. Man is free even from his freedom that is, he can surrender his humanity
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Love that cares, listens.
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He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.
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Our search for such [moral] principles can start with . . . the unconditional imperative to acknowledge every person as a person. If we ask for the contents given by this absolute, we find, first, something negative-the command not to treat a person as a thing. This seems little, but it is much. It is the core of the principle of justice.
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