Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELPrayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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Those of faith who plant sacred thoughts in the uplands of time, the secret gardeners of the Lord in mankind’s desolate hopes, may slacken and tarry but rarely betray their vocation.
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There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious.
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The man who has not suffered – what does he know anyway?
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Few are guilty, but all are responsible.
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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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It is the beginning of wisdom to be amazed at the fact of our being free.
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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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The anchor of meaning resides in an abyss, deeper than the reach of despair.
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Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance
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There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord.
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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.
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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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Sometimes there seems to be a greater separation between the church and God than between the church and state.
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Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.
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The time for the kingdom may be far off, but the task is plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt.
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Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation.
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The riches of the soul are stored up in its memory. this is the test of character, not whether a man follows the daily fashion, but whether the past is alive in his present.
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When I see an act of evil I don’t accomodate, I don’t accomodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere.
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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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However, we must not convert an inclination into an axiom that just as man’s perceptions cannot operate outside time and space, so his motivations cannot operate outside expediency;
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Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.
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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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Each day enrapture me with your marvelous things without number. …I do not ask to see the reason for it all: I ask only to share the wonder of it all.
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Mankind will not die for lack of information; it may perish for lack of appreciation.
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Philosophy, to be relevant, must offer us a wisdom to live by.
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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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL