God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELSelf-respect is the fruit of discipline.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children.
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At all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
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In the midst of our applauding the feats of civilization, the Bible flings itself like a knife slashing our complacency; remind us that God, too, has a voice in history.
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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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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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Faith like Job’s cannot be shaken becasue it is the result of having been shaken.
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The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.
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Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme.
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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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Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
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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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Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
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The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.
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Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness.
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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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL






