Being is transcended by a concern for being. Our perplexity will not be solved by relating human existence to a timeless, subpersonal abstraction which we call essence.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELMan has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal, and the world is now a gigantic tool box for the satisfaction of his needs.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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All that is left is to us is our being horrified at the loss of our sense of horror.
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Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.
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You must build your life as if it were a work of art.
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Those who are open to the wonder will not miss it. Faith is found in solicitude for faith, in an inner care for the wonder that is everywhere.
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Awe 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.
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The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.
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I would say about individuals, A Individual dies when they cease to to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the sunshine again.
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It is not a psychical quality, something that exists in the mind only, but a force from the beyond.
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Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ….get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.
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God is everywhere or nowhere, the father of all people or of none, concerned about everything or nothing.
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We can do justice to human being only by relating it to the transcendent care for being.
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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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We worry a great deal about the problem of church and state. Now what about the church and God?
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In the first way he sees in what surrounds him things to be handled, forces to be managed, objects to be put to use.
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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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We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
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To us a single act of injustice–cheating in business, exploitation of the poor–is slight; to the prophets, a disaster.
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God is not nice. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.
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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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Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions. Source: The Wisdom of Heschel
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Every little deed counts.
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There is a built-in sense of indebtedness in the consciousness of man, an awareness of owing gratitude, or being caled upon at certain moments to reciprocate
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Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder.
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Then comes the insight that All is God. One still realizes that the world is as it was, but it does not matter, it does not affect one’s faith.
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Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.
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Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL