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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELNever 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.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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The tragedy of religion is partly due to its isolation from life, as if God could be segregated.
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The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.
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Man is a messenger who forgot the message.
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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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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.
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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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Trust is the core of human relationships, of gregariousness among men.
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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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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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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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This may be the vocation of man: to say “Amen” to being and to the Author of being; to live in defiance of absurdity, notwithstanding futility and defeat; to attain faith in God even in spite of God.
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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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It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.
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People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained.
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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 HESCHEL