Top 169 Quotes & Sayings by Abraham Joshua Heschel - Page 2

The man who has not suffered - what does he know anyway?

Indeed, the sort of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics. To us a single act of injustice--cheating in business, exploitation of the poor--is slight; to the prophets, a disaster. To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence: to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.

We do not step out of the world when we pray; we merely see the world in a different setting. The self is not the hub but the spoke of the revolving wheel. It is precisely the function of prayer to shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender.

Life is not meaningful...unle ss it is serving an end beyond itself; unless it is of value to someone else.

Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.

(People) can never attain fulfillment, or sense of meaning, unless it is shared, unless it pertains to other human beings.

Every little deed counts.

Life without commitment is not worth living.

(People achieve) fullness of being in fellowship, in care for others.

We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes. ... The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.

Wonder, or radical amazement, is a way of going beyond what is given in thing and thought, refusing to take anything for granted, to regard anything as final. It is our honest response to the grandeur and mystery of reality our confrontation with that which transcends the given.

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind. Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation.

People are anxious to save up financial means for old age; they should also be anxious to prepare a spiritual means for old age.... Wisdom, maturity, tranquility do not come all of a sudden when we retire.

It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact rather than as an ultimate goal. It is the beginning of wisdom to be amazed at the fact of our being free.

The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.

Awareness of the divine begins with wonder.

Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness.

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home.

To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity - there is the challenge.

All that is left is to us is our being horrified at the loss of our sense of horror.

Faith is something that comes out of the soul. It is not an information that is absorbed but an attitude, existing prior to the formulation of any creed.

The essence of man is not what he is, but in what he is able to be.

We may not know whether our understanding is correct, or whether our sentiments are noble, but the air of the day surrounds us like spring which spreads over the land without our aid or notice.

The tragedy of religion is partly due to its isolation from life, as if God could be segregated.

Philosophy may be defined as the art of asking the right question...awareness of the problem outlives all solutions. The answers are questions in disguise, every new answer giving rise to new questions.

To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words.

I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don't be old. Don't be stale.

All action is vicarious faith.

You must build your life as if it were a work of art.

Faith opens our hearts for the entrance of the holy. It is almost as though God were thinking for us.

There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time; to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year.

Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.

The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.

How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it!

To be spiritual is to be amazed.

Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.

I would say about individuals, A Individual dies when they cease to to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the sunshine again. When I see an act of evil I don't accomodate, I don't accomodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere. I am still so surprised! That is why I am against it. We must learn to be surprised.

In prayer we shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender

There is happiness in the love of labor, there is misery in the love of gain.

It is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward.

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.

We worship God through our questions.

This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things.

Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.

The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God

The riches of the soul are stored up in its memory. this is the test of character, not whether a man follows the daily fashion, but whether the past is alive in his present.

In the midst of our applauding the feats of civilization, the Bible flings itself like a knife slashing our complacency; remind us that God, too, has a voice in history.

Pagans exalt sacred things, the Prophets extol sacred deeds.

God is either of no importance, or of supreme importance.

Man is naturally self-centered and he is inclined to regard expediency as the supreme standard for what is right and wrong. However, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man's perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency; that man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.

To be is to stand for.

The task of life is to face sacred moments.

Trust is the core of human relationships, of gregariousness among men. Friendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person's qualities but on trust. It is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men.

In the darkest night to be certain of the dawn...to go through Hell and to continue to trust in the goodness of God-this is the challenge and the way.

Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear-filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder.

God is everywhere or nowhere, the father of all people or of none, concerned about everything or nothing. Only in His presence shall we learn that the glory of humankind is not in its will to power but in its power of compassion.

Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night.

Knowledge-like the sky- is never private property. No teacher has a right to withhold it from anyone who asks for it. Teaching is the art of sharing.

Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment.

to become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words...the tangent to the curve of human experience lies beyond the limits of language. the world of things we perceive is but a veil. It’s flutter is music, its ornament science, but what it conceals is inscrutable. It’s silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away. Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear--filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder.