21 quotes
Knowledge of that which concerns us infinitely is possible only in an attitude of infinite concern.
The Courage to Be (1952)
The anxiety of fate is conquered by the self-affirmation of the individual as an infinitely significant microcosmic representation of the universe.
The Courage to Be (1952)
In all existential knowledge both subject and object are transformed by the very act of knowing.
The Courage to Be (1952)
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.
The Courage to Be (1952)
There is a third element in absolute faith, the acceptance of being accepted.
The Courage to Be (1952)
One can become aware of it in the anxiety of fate and death when the traditional symbols, which enable men to stand the vicissitudes of fate and the horror of death have lost their power.
The Courage to Be (1952)
Even loneliness is not absolute loneliness because the contents of the universe are in him.
The Courage to Be (1952)
The first element is the experience of the power of being which is present even in the face of the most radical manifestation of non being.
The Courage to Be (1952)
In Calvinism and sectarianism man became more and more transformed into an abstract moral subject, as in Descartes he was considered an epistemological subject.
The Courage to Be (1952)
Enthusiasm for the universe, in knowing as well as in creating, also answers the question of doubt and meaninglessness. Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge. And meaninglessness is no threat so long as enthusiasm for the universe and for man as its center is alive.
The Courage to Be (1952)
A self which has become a matter of calculation and management has ceased to be a self. It has become a thing. You must participate in a self in order to know what it is.
The Courage to Be (1952)
Christianity speaks of resurrection and eternal life, Platonism of a participation of the soul in the transtemporal sphere of essences. But the modern idea of immortality means a continuous participation in the productive process.
The Courage to Be (1952)
At the end of ancient civilization ontic anxiety is predominant, at the end of the Middle Ages moral anxiety, and at the end of the modern period spiritual anxiety.
The Courage to Be (1952)
Plato … teaches the separation of the human soul from its “home” in the realm of pure essences. Man is estranged from what he essentially is. His existence in a transitory world contradicts his essential participation in the eternal world of ideas.
The Courage to Be (1952)
And one can become aware of the God above the God of theism in the anxiety of guilt and condemnation when the traditional symbols that enable men to withstand the anxiety of guilt and condemnation have lost their power.
The Courage to Be (1952)
The existential attitude is one of involvement in contrast to a merely theoretical or detached attitude. “Existential” in this sense can be defined as participating in a situation, especially a cognitive situation, with the whole of one’s existence.
The Courage to Be (1952)
Individualism is the self-affirmation of the individual self as individual self without regard to its participation in its world. As such it is the opposite of collectivism, the self affirmation of the self as part of a larger whole without regard to its character as an individual self.
The Courage to Be (1952)
The second element in absolute faith is the dependence of the experience of nonbeing on the experience on being and the dependence of the experience of meaninglessness on the experience of meaning. even in the state of despair one has enough being to make despair possible.
The Courage to Be (1952)
Being-itself is essentially productive.
The Courage to Be (1952)
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.
The Courage to Be (1952)