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 TillichRead
Astonishment is the root of philosophy.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Astonishment is the starting point for philosophical inquiry and understanding.
In this quote, Paul Tillich emphasizes the importance of astonishment as a fundamental element in philosophy. It suggests that a sense of wonder and surprise about the world leads to deeper questioning and exploration of existence, encouraging individuals to seek understanding beyond surface-level perceptions.
Themes
AstonishmentPhilosophyWonderInquiryUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
Use this quote when discussing the foundations of philosophical thought in a classroom.
More from Paul Tillich
All quotes βCruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.
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He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.
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The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.
Paul TillichRead
The citizens of a city are not guilty of the crimes committed in their city; but they are guilty as participants in the destiny of [humanity] as a whole and in the destiny of their city in particular; for their acts in which freedom was united with destiny have contributed to the destiny in which they participate. They are guilty, not of committing the crimes of which their group is accused, but of contributing to the destiny in which these crimes happened.
Paul TillichRead
Wine is like the incarnation--it is both divine and human
Paul TillichRead
Similar quotes
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
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Come from forever, and you will go everywhere.
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If you grow up in a WEIRD society, you become so well educated in the ethic of autonomy that you can detect oppression and inequality even where the apparent victims see nothing wrong.
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Let Pascal say that man is a thinking reed. He is wrong; man is a thinking erratum. Each period in life is a new edition that corrects the preceding one and that in turn will be corrected by the next, until publication of the definitive edition, which the publisher donates to the worms.
Machado De AssisRead
There was a hysteria in there, certainly, but there was also the exhaustion of someone who had managed, somehow, to believe several dozen impossible things in the last twenty-four hours, without ever getting a proper breakfast.
Neil GaimanRead
It is our task to inquire into the causes that have brought about the observed differentiation, and to investigate the sequence of events that have led to the establishment of the multifarious forms of human life
Franz BoasRead