Top 100 I Thou Quotes
#1. The I-It relationship, we treat other people as objects and expect something back from each relationship. In contrast, in the I-Thou relationship we relate to others out of respect, friendship, and love.
Alex Pattakos
#2. The basic word I-Thou can be spoken only with one's whole being. The concentration and fusion into a whole being can never be accomplished by me, can never be accomplished without me. I require a Thou to become; becoming I, I say Thou.
Martin Buber
#3. Almighty God, thee only have I; thou steerest my fate, I must give myself up to thee! Give me a livelihood! Give me a bride! My blood wants love, as my heart does!
Hans Christian Andersen
#4. In solitude, at last, we're able to let God define us the way we are always supposed to be defined - by relationship: the I-thou relationship, in relation to a Presence that demands nothing of us but presence itself. Not performance but presence
Richard Rohr
#5. The I of the basic word I-Thou is different from that of the basic word I-It.
Martin Buber
#6. How Low am I, thou painted Maypole? Speak:
How Low am I? I am not yet so Low
But that my Nails can reach unto thine Eyes
William Shakespeare
#7. It is wrong to turn a man (a subject) into a thing (an object). By means of spiritual dialogue, the I-It relationship becomes an I-Thou relationship. God comes and goes in man's soul. And men come and go in each other's souls. Sometimes they come and go in each other's beds, too.
Saul Bellow
#9. Thou shalt not steal unless thou hast a majority vote in Congress ... I'm healthy; subsidized prescription drugs won't do me much good. I'd be willing to forego my prescription drugs if Congress would force some young American to mow my lawn.
Walter E. Williams
#10. I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart.
Rabindranath Tagore
#11. It is hard to tell whether he's being honest or following the high school commandment of Thou shalt not show thy uncoolness by openly caring about something, which I have never been good at.
Anna Breslaw
#12. If the whole world I once could see On free soil stand, with the people free Then to the moment might I say, Linger awhile ... so fair thou art.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#13. Come, let us make love deathless, thou and I,
Seeing that our footing on the Earth is brief-
Seeing that her multitudes sweep out to die
Mocking at all that passes their belief.
Herbert Trench
#14. Jesus, I live for Thee, I labor for Thee, I desire only Thee. Thou in me and I in Thee; Thou with me and I with Thee; Thou all mine and I all Thine.
Rose Philippine Duchesne
#16. Alas, I have grieved so I am hard to love.
Yet love me
wilt thou? Open thine heart wide,
And fold within, the wet wings of thy dove.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
#17. He crept up, and touched the face of the boy. "Didst thou dream that I should be faithless and forsake thee? I - a dog?" said that mute caress.
Ouida
#18. I love thee like puddings; if thou wert pie I'd eat thee.
John Ray
#19. But, love, hate on; for now I know thy mind.
Those that can see, thou lov'st; and I am blind.
William Shakespeare
#20. If it be love indeed, tell me how much.
There's beggary in the love that can be reckon'd.
I'll set a bourn how far to be belov'd.
Then must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.
Antony and Cleopatra - Act 1, Scene 1
William Shakespeare
#21. So I find every pleasant spot In which we two were wont to meet, The field, the chamber, and the street, For all is dark where thou art not
Alfred Lord Tennyson
#22. Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake,
And die as fast as they see others grow.
William Shakespeare
#23. My ancestors further back than the first Roman were Hebrews." "The stubborn pride of thy race is not lost in thee," said Arrius, observing a flush upon the rower's face. "Pride is never so loud as when in chains." "What cause hast thou for pride?" "That I am a Jew." Arrius smiled.
Lew Wallace
#24. O my God, how happy should I be to hear from Thy lips those words which Thou didst once address to Saint Thomas of Aquin: Thou hast spoken well of Me, Pierre!
Peter Julian Eymard
#25. It was from Buber's other writings that I learned what could also be found in I and Thou: the central commandment to make the secular sacred.
Martin Buber
#26. Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye
Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,
And I am proof against their enmity.
William Shakespeare
#27. When as a child I laughed and wept, time crept. When as a youth I waxed more bold, time strolled. When I became a full-grown man, time RAN. When older still I daily grew, time FLEW. Soon I shall find, in passing on, time gone. O Christ! wilt Thou have saved me then? Amen.
Henry Twells
#28. When I stand before thee at the day's end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.
Rabindranath Tagore
#29. Money, thou bane of bliss, and source of woe,
Whence cam'st thou, that thou art so fresh and fine?
I know thy parentage is base and low:
Man found thee poor and dirty in a mine.
George Herbert
#30. Wither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall by my people; where thou diest, will I die, and there I be buried.
Cassandra Clare
#31. God mark thee to His grace! Thou was the prettiest babe that e'er I nursed. And might I live to see thee married once, I have my wish.
William Shakespeare
#32. In life's small things be resolute and great To keep thy muscle trained; Know'st thou when Fate Thy measure takes, or when she'll say to thee, "I find thee worthy; do this deed for me?"
James Russell Lowell
#33. Now, feel. I am thee and thou art me and all of one is the other. And feel now. Thou hast no heart but mine.
Ernest Hemingway,
#34. I am and always will be a sinner. But that's the beautiful thing about Jesus. I'll always try to be a better person in the eyes of God. But I'm not all of a sudden stepping up on a pedestal and saying I'm holier than thou, 'cause I'm not!
Billy Ray Cyrus
#35. Fair Flora! Now attend thy sportful feast,
Of which some days I with design have past;
A part in April and a part in May
Thou claim'st, and both command my tuneful lay;
And as the confines of two months are thine
To sing of both the double task be mine.
Ovid
#36. Thou art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream. And I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream.
George Linley
#37. O Grub Street! how do I bemoan thee, whose graceless children scorn to own thee! . Yet thou hast greater cause to be ashamed of them, than they of thee.
Jonathan Swift
#38. I thank Thee, O Lord, that Thou hast so set eternity within my heart that no earthly thing can ever satisfy me wholly.
John Baillie
#39. I think, when God told Moses, "Thou shall not kill," I think God meant, "Thou shall not kill." And within the next one hundred years, we will see that God was right.
William McNamara
#40. Dear friend, I pray thee, if thou wouldst be proving Thy strong regard for me, Make me no vows. Lip-service is not loving; Let thy faith speak for thee ...
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
#41. Thou seest I have more flesh than another man, and therefore more frailty.
William Shakespeare
#42. [I]f thou loiter when thou shouldst labour, thou wilt lose the crown. O fall to work then speedily and seriously, and bless God that thou hast yet time to do it; and though that which is past cannot be recalled, yet redeem the time now by doubling thy diligence (260).
Richard Baxter
#43. O good Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story ...
O, I die, Horatio;
William Shakespeare
#44. Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in thy word ... Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe.
Corrie Ten Boom
#45. O Lord, who art our guide even unto death, grant us, I pray Thee, grace to follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest. In little daily duties to which Thou callest us, bow down our wills to simple obedience.
Christina Rossetti
#46. Yes, it does feel deceptively safer with two; but Thou is a slippery character. Every Thou I've known has had a way of going missing. They skip town or turn perfidious, or else the drop like flies and then where are you?
Margaret Atwood
#47. I believe in Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment, thou shall not speak unfavorably of another Republican.
Renee Ellmers
#48. Mark 9:24 Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief. The context of this scripture teaches us so much
Rebecca Nicole Ross
#49. Thou we know that hearts cant lie
saying those words but i cannot try
even my mouth dont speak
we all know that action is louder than 'click
Iloveyouliketheocean
#50. Send me nor this, nor that, to increase my store,
But swear thou think'st I love thee, and no more.
John Donne
#51. Help me....Hellmouth, oh where art thou, hellmouth? Why have you forsaken me in my hour of desperation? Open quick and I'll throw myself in.
Sherrilyn Kenyon
#52. For Mercutio's soul
Is but a little way above our heads,
Staying for thine to keep him company:
Either thou, or I, or both, must go with him.
William Shakespeare
#53. And that inverted Bowl we call The Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop't we live and die,
Lift not thy hands to it for help
for It
Rolls impotently on as Thou or I.
Omar Khayyam
#54. Who is there?" asks God. "It is I." "Go away," God says ... Later ... "Who is there?" asks God. "It is Thou." "Enter," replies God.
Charlotte Joko Beck
#55. Remember , that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam; but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed.
Mary Shelley
#56. I consider in my own mind whether thou art a spirit, sometimes, or sometimes an evil imp, said the lama, smiling slowly.
Rudyard Kipling
#57. God, of thy goodness, give me Thyself; for Thou art enough for me, and I can ask for nothing less that can be full honor to Thee. And if I ask anything that is less, ever Shall I be in want, for only in Thee have I all.
Julian Of Norwich
#58. Because thou writest me often, I thank thee ... Never do I receive a letter from thee, but immediately we are together.
Seneca.
#59. No more; unless the next word that thou speak'st
Have some malignant power upon my life:
If so, I pray thee breathe it in mine ear,
As ending anthem of my endless dolour.
William Shakespeare
#60. Lord, if Thou knowest that I shall find, on leaving the house, even through obedience, an occasion of offending Thee, I conjure Thee to take away my life here, where Thou are really present, for Thou solely art my life, and I prefer a thousand deaths to causing Thee the slightest displeasure.
Alphonsus Rodriguez
#61. He who seeketh may easily get lost himself. All isolation is wrong": so say the herd. And long didst thou belong to the herd. The voice of the herd will still echo in thee. And when thou sayest, "I have no longer a conscience in common with you," then will it be a plaint and a pain.
Friedrich Nietzsche
#62. Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be:
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee,
A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free
As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I'll give to thee.
Robert Herrick
#63. I was born upon thy bank, river, My blood flows in thy stream, And thou meanderest forever, At the bottom of my dream.
Henry David Thoreau
#64. As he offered to advance, she exclaimed, Remain where thou art, proud Templar, or at thy choice advance!
one foot nearer, and I plunge myself from the precipice; my body shall be crushed out of the very form of humanity upon the stones of that courtyard ere it become the victim of thy brutality!
Walter Scott
#65. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.
[Isaiah 43:2]
Anonymous
#66. We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's." To which Tyndale passionately responded: "I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost!
William Tyndale
#67. Thou knowest that my voice is sweet, That is if thou dost hear; And I am moulded in a form Somewhat below the mean.
Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra
#68. ROMEO: I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight;
And but thou love me, let them find me here:
My life were better ended by their hate,
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.
William Shakespeare
#69. I know thy works, that thou are neither cold nor hot; I would that thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth.
Rosa Luxemburg
#70. If thy meditation tends to fill thy note-book with notions, and good sayings, concerning God, and not thy heart with longing after him, and delight in him, for aught I know thy book is as much a Christian as thou (553).
Richard Baxter
#71. What say you? Hence,
Horrible villain! or I'll spurn thine eyes
Like balls before me; I'll unhair thy head:
Thou shalt be whipp'd with wire, and stew'd in brine,
Smarting in lingering pickle.
William Shakespeare
#72. I'm sure Sting's a lovely guy. It's just that nobody wants to be seen as that holier-than-thou thing. That over-earnestness is a bit of a problem with people in bands and celebrities or whatever.
Jarvis Cocker
#73. It strikes! one, two, Three, four, five, six. Enough, enough, dear watch, Thy pulse hath beat enough. Now sleep and rest; Would thou could'st make the time to do so too; I'll wind thee up no more.
Ben Jonson
#74. Thou wouldst not think how ill all's here about my heart Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth I have of late - but wherefore I know not - lost all my mirth So
Jean Hegland
#75. Here some one thrust these cards into these old hands of mine, swears that I must play them, and no others. And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right, live in the game, and die in it.
Herman Melville
#76. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God.
Revelation 22:9
Anonymous
#77. "Why should I become angry just because another man has made a fool of himself. Do thou resist not evil!" That is what the lovers of God say. Whatever the world does, wherever it goes, has no influence [on them].
Swami Vivekananda
#78. Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,
And therefore I forbid my tears.
William Shakespeare
#79. Tea! Thou soft, thou sober,
sage and venerable liquid ...
to whose glorious insipidity,
I owe the happiest moments of my life,
let me fall prostrate.
Colley Cibber
#80. What I desire, thou dost not possess for thyself. How canst thou render it then to another?
Dorothy Dunnett
#81. Come hither, my dear. Come hither, that I mightest protectest thou!
Ted Dekker
#82. 37. That counsel I tenth, that thou trust never oath of an outlaw's son;
Anonymous
#83. I do not see them here; but after death God knows I know the faces I shall see, Each one a murdered self, with low last breath. 'I am thyself,what hast thou done to me?' 'And Iand Ithyself,' (lo! each one saith,) 'And thou thyself to all eternity!
Dante Gabriel Rossetti
#84. Thou art fertile ground, and I will plant a garden in thee.
Orson Scott Card
#85. 'T is said that absence conquers love; But oh believe it not! I've tried, alas! its power to prove, But thou art not forgot.
Frederick William Thomas
#86. LEIA [to Han:] Hast thou come here in that ungainly heap? Thou art, perhaps, then braver than I thought.
Ian Doescher
#87. Thou art of the Jungle and not of the Jungle. And I am only a black panther. But I love thee, Little Brother.
Rudyard Kipling
#88. Hast thou, then, nothing more to mention? Com'st ever, thus, with ill intention? Find'st nothing right on earth, eternally? MEPHISTOPHELES No, Lord! I find things, there, still bad as they can be. Man's misery even to pity moves my nature; I've scarce the heart to plague the wretched creature.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#89. I don't belong to a religion. Religion's the reason the world's falling apart ... " That's what religion does. It points a finger. It causes wars. It breaks apart countries. It's a petri dish for stereotypes to grow in. Religion's not about being holy," Shay said. "Just holier-than-thou.
Jodi Picoult
#90. Open thy mind; take in what I explain and keep it there; because to understand is not to know, if thou dost not retain...
Dante Alighieri
#91. Have no fear," the voice told her, "for in thee lies the hope of all. Only thou can deliver the land from darkness."
"How can I?" she asked. "I am just one against so many."
The eyes gleamed behind the dappling leaves. "Yet the smallest acorn may become the tallest oak," came the answer.
Robin Jarvis
#92. Right! There are plots.
Your beauty! Oh, ten thousand curses on 't!
How long have I beheld the devil in crystal!
Thou hast led me, like an heathen sacrifice,
With music, and with fatal yokes of flowers,
To my eternal ruin. Woman to man
Is either a god, or a wolf.
John Webster
#93. The Lord is saying literally, "Thou art 'Petros' [the masculine form of the word], and upon this 'petra' [the feminine form of the word] I will build My church. Thou art a rock, Peter, and upon this rock, I will build My church.
J. Dwight Pentecost
#94. How sweet and soothing is this hour of calm! I thank thee, night! for thou has chased away these horrid bodements which, amidst the throng, I could not dissipate; and with the blessing of thy benign and quiet influence now will I to my couch, although to rest is almost wronging such a night as this.
Lord Byron
#96. Triumphal arch, that fill'st the sky When storms prepare to part, I ask not proud Philosophy To teach me what thou art.
Thomas Campbell
#97. Wit thou well that I will not live long after thy days.
Thomas Malory
#98. Wert thou as far
As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,
I would adventure for such merchandise.
William Shakespeare
#99. Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valour
As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that
Which thou esteem'st the ornament of life,
And live a coward in thine own esteem,
Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'
Like the poor cat i' the adage?
William Shakespeare
#100. Tell them dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being:
Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!
I never sought to ask, I never knew:
But, in my simple ignorance suppose
The selfsame power that brought me there brought you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
