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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELGod cannot be sensed as a second thought, as an explanation of the origin of the universe. He is either the first and the last, or just another concept.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.
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A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children.
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Awe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine.
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And yet we must not regard this revolt as entirely negative. The energy that rejects many obsolete laws is an entirely positive impulse for renewal of life and law.
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To serve does not mean to surrender but to share.
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God is everywhere or nowhere, the father of all people or of none, concerned about everything or nothing.
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Being points beyond itself. Accustomed to think in terms of space, the expression “being points beyond itself” may be taken to denote a higher point in space.
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Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.
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Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder.
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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.
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New insight begins when satisfaction comes to an end, when all that has been seen, said, or done looks like a distortion. …
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To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity – there is the challenge.
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There is happiness in the love of labor, there is misery in the love of gain.
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A religious man is a person… whose greatest passion is compassion.
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Time is an essential dimension of existence defiant of man’s power, and truth reigns in supreme majesty, unrivaled, inimitable, and can never be defeated.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL