Our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but how to remain human in the skyscrapers.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELGod 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.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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By the word of God the world was created.
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Self-respect is the fruit of discipline.
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In any free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty – all are responsible.
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Dear Lord, grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of your universe.
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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 essence of man is not what he is, but in what he is able to be.
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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.
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To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity – there is the challenge.
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Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance
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Man is naturally self-centered and he is inclined to regard expediency as the supreme standard for what is right and wrong.
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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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The awe of God is wisdom.
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The course of life is unpredictable no one can write his autobiography in advance.
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We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light.
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Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed.
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Reality to us is thinghood , consisting of substances that occupy space; even God is conceived by most of us as a thing.
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Man’s true fulfillment depends on communion with that which transcends him.
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Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine.
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In prayer we shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender
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It is the beginning of wisdom to be amazed at the fact of our being free.
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All events are secretly interrelated; the sweep of all we are doing reaches beyond the horizon of our comprehension.
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To serve does not mean to surrender but to share.
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To sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.
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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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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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to become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words…the tangent to the curve of human experience lies beyond the limits of language.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL