When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELWe can do justice to human being only by relating it to the transcendent care for being.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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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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We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
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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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Wisdom, maturity, tranquility do not come all of a sudden when we retire.
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Few are guilty, but all are responsible.
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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?
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Knowledge-like the sky- is never private property. No teacher has a right to withhold it from anyone who asks for it. Teaching is the art of sharing.
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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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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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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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Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness.
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How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it!
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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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God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.
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We may not know whether our understanding is correct, or whether our sentiments are noble, but the air of the day surrounds us like spring which spreads over the land without our aid or notice.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL