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 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.
Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by, and turned to, the infinite.
One cannot be strong without love. For love is not an irrelevant emotion; it is the blood of life.
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.
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.
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.
The basic anxiety, the anxiety of a finite being about the threat of non-being, cannot be eliminated. It belongs to existence itself.
Every institution is inherently demonic.
He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.
Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.
Doubt is the necessary tool of knowledge.
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.
The affirmation of one’s essential being in spite of desires and anxieties creates joy.
I hope for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment.
Sometimes I think it is my mission to bring faith to the faithless, and doubt to the faithful.
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.
The separation of faith and love is always a consequence of a deterioration of religion.
Fear is the absence of faith.
Cynically speaking, one could say that it is true to life to be cynical about it.