I do not accept any absolute formulas for living. No preconceived code can see ahead to everything that can happen in a man's life. As we live, we grow and our beliefs change. They must change. So I think we should live with this constant discovery. We should be open to this adventure in heightened awareness of living. We should stake our whole existence on our willingness to explore and experience.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of embracing life's uncertainties and being open to change and discovery.
Martin Buber suggests that there is no single, rigid way to live one's life, as circumstances and personal beliefs evolve over time. Instead of adhering to strict formulas, we should approach life as an adventure, maintaining a mindset of curiosity and awareness that allows for growth and exploration.
In practice
In a speech about personal growth, one might quote Buber to illustrate the need for flexibility in one's beliefs.
When I confront a human being as my Thou and speak the basic word I-Thou to him, then he is no thing among things nor does he consist of things. He is no longer He or She, a dot in the world grid of space and time, nor a condition to be experienced and described, a loose bundle of named qualities. Neighborless and seamless, he is Thou and fills the firmament. Not as if there were nothing but he; but everything else lives in his light.
Play is the exultation of the possible.
There is no room for God in him who is full of himself.
Every person born in this world represents something new, something that never existed before, something original and unique.
It is usual to think of good and evil as two poles, two opposite directions, the antithesis of one another...We must begin by doing away with this convention.
God dwells wherever man lets Him in.
Don't believe the hype; don't believe what it tells you on your driver's license. You are an extension of the power that created this whole universe.
Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman – how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle.
As bronze may be much beautified by lying in the dark damp soil, so men who fade in dust of warfare fade fairer, and sorrow blooms their soul.
What secret knowledge, one must wonder, is breathed into lawyers when they become Justices of this Court that enables them to discern that a practice which the text of the Constitution does not clearly proscribe, and which our people have regarded as constitutional for 200 years, is in fact unconstitutional?
When I was modelling, I spent half my life staring at thousands of perfect reflections. It got to a stage where I was losing all sense of reality - so after I quit modelling, I took all the mirrors out of my house.
When one illusion vanishes, another shall appear, and, still leading me forward towards an horizon that retreats as I advance, the happy prospect of futurity shall vanish only with my existence.
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