Quotes by Paul Tillich

Anger is a noble infirmity; the generous failing of the just; the one degree that riseth above zeal, asserting the prerogative of virtue.
– Paul Tillich
Astonishment is the root of philosophy.
– 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
Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.
– 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
I hope for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment.
– Paul Tillich
I loved thee beautiful and kind, And plighted an eternal vow; So altered are thy face and mind, t'were perjury to love thee now!
– 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
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
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
There is no love which does not become help.
– 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
Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny.
– Paul Tillich
The first duty of love is to listen.
– Paul Tillich
The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.
– Paul Tillich
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.
– Paul Tillich
Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate.
– 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
Faith is the state of being ultimately concerned.
– Paul Tillich
Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by, and turned to, the infinite.
– Paul Tillich
Doubt is not the opposite of faith it is one element of faith.
– Paul Tillich