Paul Tillich Quotes

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Paul Tillich

Profession : Theologian

Birth : August 20, 1886

The first duty of love is to listen.

Paul Tillich

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

Paul Tillich

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.

Paul Tillich

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

Paul Tillich

Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.

Paul Tillich

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

Paul Tillich

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

Paul Tillich

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

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

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

Paul Tillich

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

Paul Tillich

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

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

Paul Tillich

There is no love which does not become help.

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

Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.

Paul Tillich

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.

Paul Tillich

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

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

Boredom is rage spread thin.

Paul Tillich