Martin Buber I Thou Quotes & Sayings

But since the time of Leibnitz, it is hard to find philosophers who stress relatedness in any way. There is Henri Bergson, and before him the romantics, and Marx with his talk of the brotherhood of revolution, and Martin Buber with his I and Thou, but by and large modern philosophy is about aloneness. We are forlorn, abandoned. — Stuart Miller

Then the highest state of love is prayerfulness. In prayerfulness there is communion. In sex there is the I/it relationship, in love the I/thou relationship. Martin Buber stops there; his Judaic tradition won't allow him to go further. But one step more has to be taken that is neither 'I' nor 'thou' - a relationship where I and thou disappear, a relationship where two persons no longer function as two but function as one. A tremendous unity, a harmony, a deep accord - two bodies but one soul. That is the highest quality of love. I call it prayerfulness. — Rajneesh

Most of all I found myself listening- listening in the acutely active way that makes dialogue a truly hermeneutical act. Hermeneutics is the science of the interpretation of texts. Hermeneutics helps bring the meanings in texts to expression. Conversation as a hermeneutical enterprise helps persons bring their own meanings to expression. With sensitive, active listening we "hear out of" each other things we needed to bring to word but could not, without an other. This is Martin Buber's "I Thou" relationship with its dialogical transcendence; this is Reuel Howe's "miracle of dialogue. — James W. Fowler