Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELWhen faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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We can all do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments.
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What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.
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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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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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Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind–these are all a drive towards serving Him who rings our hearts like a bell.
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Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear-filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder.
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When we pray, we bring G-d into the world
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Life is not meaningful…unle ss it is serving an end beyond itself; unless it is of value to someone else.
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In our daily lives we attend primarily to that which the senses are spelling out for us: to what the eyes perceive, to what the fingers touch.
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What is meant, however, is a higher category than being: the power of maintaining being.
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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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A prophet’s true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.
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That man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.
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Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.
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One of the major symptoms of the general crisis existent in our world today is our lack of sensitivity to words.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL