Best 104 quotes of Paul Tillich on MyQuotes

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

Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate.

Morality [or ethics] is not a subject; it is a life put to the test in dozens of moments.

Mystical identification transcends the aristocratic virtue of courageous self-sacrifice. It is self- surrender in a higher, more complete, and more complete and more radical form. It is the perfect form of self-affirmation.

Neurosis is the way of avoiding non-being by avoiding being.

Nothing truly real is forgotten eternally, because everything real comes from eternity and goes to eternity.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the intellectualization of man's spiritual life was that the word "spirit" was lost and replaced by mind or intellect, and that the element of vitality which is present in "spirit" was separated and interpreted as an independent biological force. Man was divided into a bloodless intellect and a meaningless vitality. The middle ground between them, the spiritual soul, in which vitality and intentionality are united, was dropped.

Only the philosophical question is perennial, not the answers.

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.

Out of the element of participation follows the certainty of faith; out of the element of separation follows the doubt in faith. And each is essential for the nature of faith. Sometimes certainty conquers doubt, but it cannot eliminate doubt. The conquered of today may become the conqueror of tomorrow. Sometimes doubt conquers faith, but it still contains faith. Otherwise it would be indifference.

Parents need to listen as much to their kids as they do to them: "The first duty of love is to listen.

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 .

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.

Since the last decades of the nineteenth century, revolt against the objectified world has determined the character of art and literature.

Spirit is the presence of what concerns us ultimately, the ground of our being and meaning.

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.

The affirmation of one's essential being in spite of desires and anxieties creates joy.

The anxiety of fate is conquered by the self-affirmation of the individual as an infinitely significant microcosmic representation of the universe .

The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements, as well as one's deepest failures is a definite symptom of maturity.

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

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.

The citizens of a city are not guilty of the crimes committed in their city; but they are guilty as participants in the destiny of [humanity] as a whole and in the destiny of their city in particular; for their acts in which freedom was united with destiny have contributed to the destiny in which they participate. They are guilty, not of committing the crimes of which their group is accused, but of contributing to the destiny in which these crimes happened.

The courage to be as oneself within the atmosphere of Enlightenment is the courage to affirm oneself as a bridge from a lower to a higher state of rationality. It is obvious that this kind of courage to be must become conformist the moment its revolutionary attack on that which contradicts reason has ceased, namely in the victorious bourgeoisie.

The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.

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.

The first duty of love is to listen.

The joy about our work is spoiled when we perform it not because of what we produce but because of the pleasure with which it can provide us, or the pain against which it can protect us.

The most intimate motions within the depths of our souls are not completely our own. For they belong also to our friends, to humankind, to the universe, and the Ground of all being, the aim of our life.

The name of this infinite and inexhaustible depth and ground of all being is God.

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.

The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority.

There is no love which does not become help.

The separation of faith and love is always a consequence of a deterioration of religion.

The vitality that can stand the abyss of meaninglessness is aware of a hidden meaning within the destruction of meaning.

We are known in a depth of darkness through which we ourselves do not even dare to look. And at the same time, we are seen in a height of a fullness which surpasses our highest vision.

We can speak without voice to the trees and the clouds and the waves of the sea. Without words they respond through the rustling of leaves and the moving of clouds and the murmuring of the sea.

Where there is faith there is an awareness of holiness.

Why does philosophy use concepts and why does faith use symbols if both try to express the same ultimate? The answer, of course, is that the relation to the ultimate is not the same in each case. The philosophical relation is in principle a detached description of the basic structure in which the ultimate manifests itself. The relation of faith is in principle an involved expression of concern about the meaning of the ultimate for the faithful.

You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!

[a] characteristic of a symbol is that it opens up levels of reality which otherwise are closed for us. [a symbol] also unlocks dimensions and elements of our soul which correspond to the dimensions and elements of reality. A great play gives us not only a new vision of the human scene, but it opens up hidden depths of our own being.

Christianity sees in the picture of Jesus as the Christ a human life in which all forms of anxiety are present but in which all forms of despair are absent.

Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.

It is most important for the practice of the Christian ministry, especially in its missionary activities toward those both within and without the Christian culture, to consider pagans, humanists, and Jews as members of the latent Spiritual Community and not as complete strangers who are invited into the Spiritual Community from outside. This insight serves as a powerful weapon against ecclesiastical and hierarchical arrogance.

Man is essentially 'finite freedom'; freedom not in the sense of indeterminacy but in the sense of being able to determine himself through decisions in the center of his being. Man, as finite freedom, is free within the contingencies of his finitude. But within these limits he is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become, to fulfill his destiny.

Man is the question he asks about himself, before any question has been formulated. It is, therefore, not surprising that the basic questions were formulated very early in the history of mankind.

Man lives 'in' meanings, in that which is valid logically, esthetically, religiously. The most fundamental expression of this fact is the language which gives man the power to abstract from the concretely given and, after having abstracted from it, to return to it, to interpret and transform it. The most vital being is the being which has the word and is by the word liberated from bondage to the given.

Neither the Ten Commandments nor the great commandment is revelatory if separated from the divine covenant with Israel or from the presence of the Kingdom of God in the Christ. These commandments were meant and should be taken as interpretations of a new reality, not as orders directed against the old reality. They are descriptions and not laws. ~ vol. 1, p.125

Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone. Although, in daily life, we do not always distinguish these words, we should do so consistently and thus deepen our understanding of our human predicament.

Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.