Martin Buber Quotes
There are three principles in a man's being and life, the principle of thought, the principle of speech, and the principle of action. The origin of all conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean and I don't do what I say.
Buber, Martin. The Way of Man According to the Teaching of Hasidism. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1950, p. 32.
It is not clear that L’Estrange actually originated the phrase that politicians use so frequently. It may have been a common aphorism of the day and place. However, this is the earliest English written use of the statement that we have yet found.
The President’s State of the Union Message had contained invalid claims that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa. The press was attempting to determine who put the information into the draft of the President’s speech.
Martin Buber was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism centered on the distinction between the I–Thou relationship and the I–It relationship. Born in Vienna, Buber came from a family of observant Jews, but broke with Jewish custom to pursue secular studies in philosophy. In 1902, he became the editor of the weekly Die Welt, the central organ of the Zionist movement, although he later withdrew from organizational work in Zionism. In 1923, Buber wrote his famous essay on existence, Ich und Du (later translated into English as I and Thou), and in 1925, he began translating the Hebrew Bible into the German language.
