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.

Cruelty towards others is always also cruelty towards ourselves.

He who risks and fails can be forgiven. He who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being.

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.

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.

Wine is like the incarnation--it is both divine and human

Man is able to decide for or against reason, he is able to create beyond reason or to destroy below reason

Astonishment is the root of philosophy.

I hope for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment.

Parents need to listen as much to their kids as they do to them: "The first duty of love is to listen."

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.

Man's ultimate concern must be expressed symbolically, because symbolic language alone is able to express the ultimate.

Every institution is inherently demonic.

In the depth of the anxiety of having to die is the anxiety of being eternally forgotten.

Being religious means asking passionately the question of the meaning of our existence and being willing to receive answers, even if the answers hurt.

The courage to be is rooted in the God who appears when God has disappeared in the anxiety of doubt.

Love is the infinite which is given to the finite.

Morality [or ethics] is not a subject; it is a life put to the test in dozens of moments.

The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements, as well as one's deepest failures is a definite symptom of maturity.

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.

Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundations and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received.