Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELIt is gratefulness which makes the soul great.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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For living is not being in itself, but living of the world, affecting, exploiting, consuming, comprehending, deriving
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Only those will apprehend religion who can probe its depth, who can combine intuition and love with the rigor of method
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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.
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To be is to stand for.
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Is not self-sufficiency itself insufficient to explain self-sufficiency?
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Human being is both being in the world and living in the world. Living involves responsible understanding of one’s role in relation to all other beings.
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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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Understanding God is not attained by calling into session all arguments for and against Him, in order to debate whether He is a reality or a figment of the mind.
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The self is not the hub but the spoke of the revolving wheel. It is precisely the function of prayer to shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender.
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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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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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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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It is dangerous to take human freedom for granted, to regard it as a prerogative rather than as an obligation, as an ultimate fact rather than as an ultimate goal.
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When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
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There is happiness in the love of labor, there is misery in the love of gain.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL