Man is naturally self-centered and he is inclined to regard expediency as the supreme standard for what is right and wrong.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELAs civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
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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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How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it!
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God is not nice. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.
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The work on weekdays and the rest on the seventh day are correlated. The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days the inspired.
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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.
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The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God.
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The idea of dependence is an explanation, whereas self-sufficiency is an unprecedented, nonanalogous concept in terms of what we know about life within nature.
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The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song.
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The road to the sacred leads through the secular.
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Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state–it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.
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Faith like Job’s cannot be shaken becasue it is the result of having been shaken.
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There is no answer to Auschwitz…To try to answer is to commit a supreme blasphemy. Israel enables us to bear the agony of Auschwitz without radical despair
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We can all do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments.
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Wise criticism always begins with self-criticism.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL