When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELIn our daily lives we attend primarily to that which the senses are spelling out for us: to what the eyes perceive, to what the fingers touch.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind.
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In our daily lives we attend primarily to that which the senses are spelling out for us: to what the eyes perceive, to what the fingers touch.
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For living is not being in itself, but living of the world, affecting, exploiting, consuming, comprehending, deriving
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Our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but how to remain human in the skyscrapers.
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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.
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Trust is the core of human relationships, of gregariousness among men.
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When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendors of the past
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For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs.
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A religious man is a person… whose greatest passion is compassion.
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Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power…Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.
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A prophet’s true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.
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We do not step out of the world when we pray; we merely see the world in a different setting.
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When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.
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God is either of no importance, or of supreme importance.
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God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.
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To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words.
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But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.
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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.
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When faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
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Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
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It is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men.
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Man’s sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.
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What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.
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The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living.
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The essence of man is not what he is, but in what he is able to be.
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The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL