That man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELWonder, 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.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
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The idea of dependence is an explanation, whereas self-sufficiency is an unprecedented, nonanalogous concept in terms of what we know about life within nature.
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Faith like Job’s cannot be shaken becasue it is the result of having been shaken.
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Wise criticism always begins with self-criticism.
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The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God.
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Knowledge-like the sky- is never private property. No teacher has a right to withhold it from anyone who asks for it. Teaching is the art of sharing.
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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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The test of love is in how one relates not to saints and scholars but to rascals.
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The self is not the hub but the spoke of the revolving wheel. It is precisely the function of prayer to shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender.
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I am commanded therefore I am.
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It’s silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away. Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear–filling grandeur.
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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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To be is to stand for.
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It is the beginning of wisdom to be amazed at the fact of our being free.
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The degree to which one is sensitive to other people’s suffering, to other (people’s) humanity, is the index of one’s own humanity
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL