Who Said...

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Not that scientific and aesthetic understanding is not necessary - but they should do their work faithfully and immerse themselves - disappearing in that truth of relation which surpasses understanding and embraces what is understandable. [Next] corporeal man need not banish himself into the enduring matter but outlast it and rise, himself an image on the starry sky of the spirit, as the music of his living speech roars around him - pure action, the act that is not arbitrary. Here the You appeared to man out of a deeper mystery, addressed him out of the dark, and he responded with his life. Here the word has become life, and this life, whether it fulfilled the law or broke the law - both are required on occasion lest the spirit die on earth - is teaching. Thus it stands before posterity in order to teach it, not what is and not what ought to be, but how one lives in the spirit, in the countenance of the You. And that means: it stands ready to become a You for them at any time - no, it does not stand ready, it always comes toward them and touches them. But they, having become uneager and inept for such living intercourse that opens up a world, are well informed; they have imprisoned the person in history, and his speech in a library; they have codified the fulfillment or the breach, it does not matter which; nor are they stingy with reverence and eve adoration, adequately mixed with some psychology, as is only proper for modern man. O lonely countenance, starlike in the dark; O living finger upon a insensitive forehead; O steps whose echo is fading away!

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 11/18/2007 12:46:00 PM

 

Comments:

Martin Buber!

# by:  Headless-in-GR : 1:17 AM

 

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