The New Being Quotes

“And so we use them for a kind of pleasure which can be called "fun." But it is not the creative kind of fun often connected with play; it is, rather, a shallow, distracting, greedy way of "having fun." And it is not by chance that it is that type of fun which can easily be commercialized, for it is dependent on calculable reactions, without passion, without risk, without love. Of all the dangers that threaten our civilization, this is one of the most dangerous ones: the escape from one’s emptiness through a "fun" which makes joy impossible.”
― Paul Tillich, The New Being

“The gratitude of those who receive help is first and always gratitude for love and only afterwards gratitude for help.”
― Paul Tillich, The New Being

“He who is grasped by the one thing that is needed has the many things under his feet. They concern him but not ultimately, and when he loses them he does not lose the one thing he needs and that cannot be taken from him.”
― Paul Tillich, The New Being

“And like the temple, the earth was judged at Golgotha. Trembling and shaking the earth participated in the agony of the man on the Cross and in the despair of all those who had seen in Him the beginning of the new eon. Trembling and shaking the earth proved that it is not the motherly ground on which we can safely build our houses and cities, our cultures and religious systems. Trembling and shaking the earth pointed to another ground on which the earth itself rests: the self-surrendering love on which all earthly powers and values concentrate their hostility and which they cannot conquer. Since the hour when Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed His last and the rocks were split, the earth ceased to be the foundation of what we build on her. Only insofar as it has a deeper ground, can it stand; only insofar as it is rooted in the same foundation in which the Cross is rooted, can it last.”
― Paul Tillich, The New Being

“In all these warnings against pleasure, truth is mixed with untruth. Insofar as they strengthen our responsibility, they are true; insofar as they undercut our joy, they are wrong.”
― Paul Tillich, The New Being

“The message of the fulfillment of time is not a green light for a new, and assumedly Christian activism. But it makes us say with Paul: "Though our outer nature is wasting away our inner nature is renewed everyday - because we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." In these words the message of the Preacher and the message of Jesus are united. All is vanity but through this vanity eternity shines into us, comes near to us, draws us to itself. When eternity calls in time, then pessimism vanishes. When eternity times us, then time becomes a vessel of eternity. Then we become vessels of that which is eternal.”
― Paul Tillich, The New Being