- Lived:
- 1878–1965 · Vienna, Lemberg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Jerusalem
- Tradition:
- Jewish philosophy of dialogue; religious existentialism
- The Big Idea:
- You become a self only in relation to others — and every relation is one of two kinds: treating the other as an object to use (I–It) or meeting the other as a presence (I–Thou). Which kind you live in decides who you are.
- In their words:
- "All real living is meeting."
- If you remember one thing:
- The opposite of love is not hate; it is treating a person as a thing — and every genuine meeting, Buber thought, is a glimpse of God.