Daily Inspiration Quote by Martin Buber

An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language. Independently, without needing cooperation of sounds and gestures, most forcibly when they rely wholly on their glance, the eyes express the mystery in its natural prison, the anxiety of becoming. This condition of the mystery is known only by the animal, it alone can disclose it to us – and this condition only lets itself be disclosed, not fully revealed. The language in which it is uttered is what it says – anxiety, the movement of the creature between the realms of vegetable security and spiritual venture. This language is the stammering of nature at the first touch of spirit, before it yields to spirit’s cosmic venture that we call man. But no speech will ever repeat what that stammering knows and can proclaim. (pp. 96–97 (in at least one English translation; see notes)). Primary-source match: this line appears in Martin Buber’s Ich und Du (commonly titled I and Thou). The work’s original German publication year is 1923. The Plough page is a modern reprint of a passage explicitly labeled as from I and Thou, and it includes the full surrounding paragraph containing the sentence you quoted. However, Plough is not the original 1923 publication; it’s an excerpted republication. A separate web source (a quotation index page) attributes the passage to I and Thou and gives a location as “pp. 96–97,” which is plausible because pagination varies across English editions/translations. To verify the *first* publication with highest rigor, you should consult the 1923 German first edition (Ich und Du) and locate the corresponding sentence in German (and/or confirm in a specific English translation/edition you are citing).