Paul Johannes Tillich (1886–1965) was a German-American Christian existentialist philosopher and theologian. Tillich is widely regarded as one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. Among the general public, he is best known for his works The Courage to Be and Dynamics of Faith, which introduced issues of theology and modern culture to a general readership. Theologically, he is best known for his major three-volume work Systematic Theology, in which he developed his “method of correlation”, an approach of exploring the symbols of Christian revelation as answers to the problems of human existence raised by contemporary existential philosophical analysis.
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The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Awareness, Realization, Acceptance, Confidence
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
Topics: Achievements, Achieving, Maturity
You are accepted! … accepted by that which is greater than you and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask the name now, perhaps you will know it later. Do not try to do anything perhaps later you will do much. flo not seek for anything, do not perform anything do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: God, Divinity, Faith
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
Topics: Power
The first duty of love is to listen.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Love, Listening, One liners, Duty
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
Topics: Language, Solitude
Loneliness can be conquered only by those who can bear solitude.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Solitude
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
Topics: Kindness
Boredom is rage spread thin.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: One liners, Boredom
We cannot love unless we have accepted forgiveness, and the deeper our experience of forgiveness is, the greater is our love.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Love, Forgiveness
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
Topics: Faith
Fear is the absence of faith.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
Faith is an act of a finite being who is grasped by and turned to the infinite.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Faith, Belief
Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Doubt
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
Topics: Religion
Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Decision
Love that cares, listens.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Caring
I hope for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: God
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
Topics: Religion
Language has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone, and the word “solitude” to express the glory of being alone.
—Paul Tillich
Topics: Solitude, Loneliness
Man is asked to make of himself what he is supposed to become to fulfill his destiny.
—Paul Tillich
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