We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELFriendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person’s qualities but on trust.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
-
-
The course of life is unpredictable no one can write his autobiography in advance.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
In the second way he sees in what surrounds him things to be acknowledged, understood, valued or admired.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
That man can never transcend his own self. The most fatal trap into which thinking may fall is the equation of existence and expediency.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
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 HESCHEL -
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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and the false alarms of society’s hysteria, a period of cure and recovery.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
Proximity to the crowd, to the majority view, spells the death of creativity. For a soul can create only when alone, and some are chosen for the flowering that takes place in the dark avenues of night.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendors of the past
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL -
People are anxious to save up financial means for old age; they should also be anxious to prepare a spiritual means for old age….
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL






