Paul Tillich > Quotes

“Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.”
― Paul Tillich

“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.”
― Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now

“Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.”
― Paul Tillich

“The first duty of love is to listen.”
― Paul Tillich

“The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.”
― paul tillich

“Boredom is rage spread thin”
― Paul Tillich

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

“...history has shown that the most terrible crimes against love have been committed in the name of fanatically defended doctrines.”
― Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith

“Neurosis is the way of avoiding nonbeing by avoiding being”
― Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be

“Wine is like the incarnation--it is both divine and human”
― Paul Tillich

“The vitality that can stand the abyss of meaninglessness is aware of a hidden meaning within the destruction of meaning.”
― Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be

“Nothing truly real is forgotten eternally, because everything real comes from eternity and goes to eternity.”
― Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now

“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.”
― Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now

“Astonishment is the root of philosophy.”
― Paul Tillich

“Language 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.”
― Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now

“There is no place to which we could flee from God, which is outside of God.”
― Paul Tillich

“Joy is the emotional expression of the courageous YES to one's own true being.”
― Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be

“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, Systematic Theology, Vol 2: Existence and the Christ

“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.”
― Paul Tillich

“The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements - as well as one's deepest failures - is a definite symptom of maturity.”
― Paul Tillich

“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." Paul Tillich”
― Paul Tillich

“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”
― Paul Tillich

“I hope for the day when everyone can speak of God without embarrassment.”
― Paul Tillich

“I have given no definition of love. This is impossible, because there is no higher principle by which it could be defined. It is life itself in its actual unity. The forms and structures in which love embodies itself are the forms and structures in which love overcomes its self-destructive forces.”
― Paul Tillich, The Protestant Era

“[A] process was going on in which people were transformed into things, into pieces of reality which pure science can calculate and technical science can control. … [T]he safety which is guaranteed by well-functioning mechanisms for the technical control of nature, by the refined psychological control of the person, by the rapidly increasing organizational control of society – this safety is bought at a high price: man, for whom all this was invented as a means, becomes a means himself in the service of means.”
― Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be

“Faith as the state of being ultimately concerned implies love, namely, the desire and urge toward the reunion of the seperated.”
― Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith

“The separation of faith and love is always a consequence of a deterioration of religion.”
― Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith

“The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.”
― Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be

“The passion for truth is silenced by answers which have the weight of undisputed authority.”
― Paul Tillich

“In the courageous standing of uncertainty, faith shows most visibly its dynamic character.”
― Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith