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The existential attitude is one of involvement in contrast to a merely theoretical or detached attitude. Existential in this sense can be defined as participating in a situation, especially a cognitive situation, with the whole of one's existence.

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
Attitude
Detached
Existence
Existential
Situation
Involvement
Sense
Theoretical
Whole
Contrast
Defined
Existentialism
Merely
Cognitive
Especially
Participating

More quotes by Paul Tillich

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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 .
Paul Tillich
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Knowledge of that which concerns us infinitely is possible only in an attitude of infinite concern.
Paul Tillich
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Being human means asking the questions of one's own being and living under the impact of the answers given to this question. And, conversely, being human means receiving answers to the questions of one's own being and asking questions under the impact of the answers.
Paul Tillich
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Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude.
Paul Tillich
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Existential anxiety of doubt drives the person toward the creation of certitude of systems of meaning, which are supported by tradition and authority. Neurotic anxiety builds a narrow castle of certitude which can be defended with the utmost certainty.
Paul Tillich
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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.
Paul Tillich
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There is no condition for forgiveness.
Paul Tillich
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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.
Paul Tillich
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The character of human life, like the character of the human condition, like the character of all life, is ambiguity: the inseparable mixture of good and evil, the true and false, the creative and destructive forces-both individual and social.
Paul Tillich
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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.
Paul Tillich
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Faith as ultimate concern is an act of the total personality. It happens in the center of the personal life and includes all its elements. Faith is the most centered act of the human mind. It is not a movement of a special section or a special function of man's total being. They all are united in the act of faith.
Paul Tillich
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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!
Paul Tillich
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In the depth of the anxiety of having to die is the anxiety of being eternally forgotten.
Paul Tillich
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Fear, as opposed to anxiety, has a definite object, which can be faced, analyzed, attacked, endured... anxiety has no object, or rather, in a paradoxical phrase, its object is the negation of every object.
Paul Tillich
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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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Love that cares, listens.
Paul Tillich
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Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge.
Paul Tillich
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The anxiety of fate is conquered by the self-affirmation of the individual as an infinitely significant microcosmic representation of the universe .
Paul Tillich
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Nothing truly real is forgotten eternally, because everything real comes from eternity and goes to eternity.
Paul Tillich
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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
Paul Tillich