Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state–it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELHuman being is both being in the world and living in the world. Living involves responsible understanding of one’s role in relation to all other beings.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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There is a built-in sense of indebtedness in the consciousness of man, an awareness of owing gratitude, or being caled upon at certain moments to reciprocate
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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.
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All events are secretly interrelated; the sweep of all we are doing reaches beyond the horizon of our comprehension.
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There is no specialized art of prayer. All of life must be a training to pray. We pray the way we live.
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Man is a messenger who forgot the message.
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Mankind will not die for lack of information; it may perish for lack of appreciation.
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The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song.
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Yet the abyss is not not infinite; its bottom may suddenly be discovered within the confines of a human heart or under the debris of might doubts.
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Self-sufficiency, independence, the capacity to stand apart, to differ, to resist, and to defy-all are modes of being human.
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Things, when magnified, are forgeries of happiness.
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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.
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There is no answer to Auschwitz…To try to answer is to commit a supreme blasphemy. Israel enables us to bear the agony of Auschwitz without radical despair
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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.
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Few are guilty, but all are responsible.
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Normal consciousness is a state of stupor, in which the sensibility to the wholly real and responsiveness to the stimuli of the spirit are reduced.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL






