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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELMuch of what the Bible demands can be comprised in one imperative: Remember!
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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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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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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Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.
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Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.
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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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It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact rather than as an ultimate goal.
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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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Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.
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God cannot be sensed as a second thought, as an explanation of the origin of the universe. He is either the first and the last, or just another concept.
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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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You must build your life as if it were a work of art.
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feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal
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The answers are questions in disguise, every new answer giving rise to new questions.
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Self-sufficiency, independence, the capacity to stand apart, to differ, to resist, and to defy-all are modes of being human.
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In the second way he sees in what surrounds him things to be acknowledged, understood, valued or admired.
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We do not step out of the world when we pray; we merely see the world in a different setting.
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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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Faith is something that comes out of the soul. It is not an information that is absorbed but an attitude, existing prior to the formulation of any creed.
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Man has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal, and the world is now a gigantic tool box for the satisfaction of his needs.
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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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I am still so surprised! That is why I am against it. We must learn to be surprised.
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Time is an essential dimension of existence defiant of man’s power, and truth reigns in supreme majesty, unrivaled, inimitable, and can never be defeated.
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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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Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.
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Faith like Job’s cannot be shaken becasue it is the result of having been shaken.
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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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL