Awareness of the divine begins with wonder.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELAwe is a sense for transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things. It enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.
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To us injustice is injurious to the welfare of the people; to the prophets it is a deathblow to existence: to us, an episode; to them, a catastrophe, a threat to the world.
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Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible.
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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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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.
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We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes. … The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.
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To be is to stand for.
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How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it!
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We may not know whether our understanding is correct, or whether our sentiments are noble, but the air of the day surrounds us like spring which spreads over the land without our aid or notice.
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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.
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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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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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What is meant, however, is a higher category than being: the power of maintaining being.
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When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.
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To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL






