Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELSelf-respect is the root of discipline
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.
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There are few ideas in the world of thought which contain so much spiritual power as the idea of the Sabbath.
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We do not step out of the world when we pray; we merely see the world in a different setting.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
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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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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Wonder, 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.
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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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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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Those of faith who plant sacred thoughts in the uplands of time, the secret gardeners of the Lord in mankind’s desolate hopes, may slacken and tarry but rarely betray their vocation.
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You must build your life as if it were a work of art.
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As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind.
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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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To be spiritual is to be amazed.
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In the darkest night to be certain of the dawn…to go through Hell and to continue to trust in the goodness of God-this is the challenge and the way.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL






