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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELfeel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature; in which the attainment of power
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Life without commitment is not worth living.
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The man who has not suffered – what does he know anyway?
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Understanding God is not attained by calling into session all arguments for and against Him, in order to debate whether He is a reality or a figment of the mind.
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To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.
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Mankind will not perish for want of information; but only for want of appreciation.
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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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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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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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Is not self-sufficiency itself insufficient to explain self-sufficiency?
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For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs.
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To answer, to live in a way which is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living.
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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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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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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






