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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELTo answer, to live in a way which is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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To us a single act of injustice–cheating in business, exploitation of the poor–is slight; to the prophets, a disaster.
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Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.
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Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a market place for you.
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Life without commitment is not worth living.
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All that is left is to us is our being horrified at the loss of our sense of horror.
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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.
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At all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
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In the second way he sees in what surrounds him things to be acknowledged, understood, valued or admired.
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Pagans exalt sacred things, the Prophets extol sacred deeds.
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That man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.
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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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Our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but how to remain human in the skyscrapers.
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A religious man is a person… whose greatest passion is compassion.
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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.
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To be spiritual is to be amazed.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL