Top 112 Quotes & Sayings by Paul Tillich

Boredom is rage spread thin.

Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.

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

If my tongue were trained to measures, I would sing a stirring song.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith.

The first duty of love is to listen.

Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.

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

Faith consists in being vitally concerned with that ultimate reality to which I give the symbolical name of God. Whoever reflects earnestly on the meaning of life is on the verge of an act of faith.

I hope for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment.

Our language has wisely sensed the two sides of 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.

Astonishment is the root of philosophy.

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.

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

Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by, and turned to, the infinite.

Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.

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.

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.

Loneliness expresses the pain of being alone and solitude expresses the glory of being alone.

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

Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.

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

There is no love which does not become help.

Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny.

There is no condition for forgiveness.

Every institution is inherently demonic.

Genuine forgiveness is participation, reunion overcoming the powers of estrangement. . . We cannot love unless we have accepted forgiveness, and the deeper our experience of forgiveness is, the greater is our love.

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

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.

Love that cares, listens.

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

Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.

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.

In those who rest on their unshakable faith, pharisaism and fanaticism are the unmistakable symptoms of doubt which has been repressed. Doubt is not overcome by repression but by courage. Courage does not deny that there is doubt, but it takes the doubt into itself as an expression of its own finitude and affirms the content of an ultimate concern. Courage does not need the safety of an unquestionable conviction. It includes the risk without which no creative life is possible.

Fear is the absence of faith.

Forgiving presupposes remembering. And it creates a forgetting not in the natural way we forget yesterday's weather, but in the way of the great "in spite of" that says: I forget although I remember. Without this kind of forgetting no human relationship can endure healthily. I don't refer to a solemn act of asking for and offering forgiveness. Such rituals as sometimes occur between parents and children, or friends, or man and wife, are often acts of moral arrogance on the one part and enforced humiliation on the other. But I speak of the lasting willingness to accept him who has hurt us.

He who knows about depth knows about God.

We have to build a better man before we can build a better society.

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

The fatal pedagogical error is to throw answers like stones at the heads of those who have not yet asked the questions.

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

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.

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

Where there is faith there is an awareness of holiness.

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

Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude.

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

Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge.

Every person, every place and every action is qualified by this association with the unconditional; it penetrates every moment of daily life and sanctifies it: "The Universe is God's sanctuary. Every work day is a day of the Lord, every supper is a Lord's supper, every work a fulfillment of the divine task, every joy a joy in God. In all preliminary concerns, ultimate concern is present, consecrating them."

God does not exist. He is being-itself beyond essence and existence. Therefore to argue that God exists is to deny him.

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain ....Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying, 'You are accepted.'

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

Destiny is not a strange power which determines what shall happen to me. It is myself as given, formed by nature, history, and myself. My destiny is the basis of my freedom; my freedom participates in shaping my destiny.

Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness.

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.

Accept the fact that you are accepted, despite the fact that you are unacceptable.

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!

All things and all people, so to speak, call on us with small or loud voices. They want us to listen. They want us to understand their intrinsic claims, their justice of being. But we can give it to them only through the love that listens.

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.