Tillich Best Quotes & Sayings

Accept the fact that you are accepted, despite the fact that you are unacceptable. — Paul Tillich

Courage is a greater virtue than love. At best, it takes courage to love. — Paul Tillich

Man is able to decide for or against reason, he is able to create beyond reason or to destroy below reason — Paul Tillich

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. — Paul Tillich

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith — Paul Tillich

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. — Paul Tillich

This is biblical ethics. It has little to do with the middle-class ethics of avoiding a few things which are supposed to be wrong and doing a few things which are supposed to be right. Biblical ethics means standing in ultimate decisions for or against God. — Paul Tillich

In the depth of the anxiety of having to die is the anxiety of being eternally forgotten. — Paul Tillich

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 (our) total being. They all are united in the act of faith. — Paul Tillich

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

In Calvinism and sectarianism man became more and more transformed into an abstract moral subject, as in Descartes he was considered an epistemological subject. — Paul Tillich

The faith which makes the courage of despair possible is the acceptance of the power of being, even in the grip of non-being. Even in the despair about meaning being affirms itself through us. The act of accepting meaninglessness is in itself a meaningful act. It is an act of faith. — Paul Tillich

Love is the infinite which is given to the finite. — Paul Tillich

Every institution is inherently demonic. — Paul Tillich

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. — Paul Tillich

There is no love which does not become help. — Paul Tillich

Only if God IS ultimate reality, can he be our unconditional concern; only then can he be the object of surrender, obedience, and assent. Faith in anything which has only preliminary reality is idolatrous. — 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

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. — Paul Tillich

One cannot be strong without love. For love is not an irrelevant emotion; it is the blood of life. — Paul Tillich

But freedom is the possibility of a total and centered act of the personality, an act in which all the drives and influences which constitute the destiny of man are brought into the centered unity of a decision. — Paul Tillich

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

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. — Paul Tillich

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

The first duty of love is to listen. — Paul Tillich

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. — Paul Tillich

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. — Paul Tillich

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

The thing is," I say to Paul Tillich, in my head, "the thing is, Paul, that ultimately, I don't think my anxiety is ontic, moral, or spiritual." I look at him. "At the end of it all, I just need some money, Paul," I say. Paul Tillich nods. If I were rich, none of this would matter. I just need some money. — Caitlin Moran

For encountering God means encountering transcendent security and transcendent eternity. — Paul Tillich

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. — Paul Tillich

Our spirituality is the ground of our being. — Paul Tillich