We cannot approach the spirit unless we repair the vessels. Reverence for words – an awareness of the wonder of words, of the mystery of words – is an essential prerequisite for prayer.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELSometimes there seems to be a greater separation between the church and God than between the church and state.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.
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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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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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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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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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Society today is no longer in revolt against particular laws which it finds alien, unjust, and imposed, but against law as such, against the principle of law.
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People are anxious to save up financial means for old age; they should also be anxious to prepare a spiritual means for old age….
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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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Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.
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God 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.
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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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The riches of the soul are stored up in its memory. this is the test of character, not whether a man follows the daily fashion, but whether the past is alive in his present.
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Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.
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There is no specialized art of prayer. All of life must be a training to pray. We pray the way we live.
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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