“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.”

Awareness of the divine begins with wonder.

One of the major symptoms of the general crisis existent in our world today is our lack of sensitivity to words.

God is not nice. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.

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.

The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.

Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods.

But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.

The liturgical movement must become a revolutionary movement seeking to overthrow the forces that continue to destroy the promise, the hope, the vision.

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.

Self-respect is the root of discipline

This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things.

Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine.

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.

Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline.

What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.

Noble ideas, great sentiments have always existed and have always been transmitted, but wars have never ceased.

Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the ‘environmentalist’ view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.

Colonies do not cease to be colonies because they are independent.

It is almost always a fault of one who loves not to realize when he ceases to be loved.

We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.

God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.

Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.

When our consciousness is quiet, the waves of thought cease and we see clearly enough to relate back to our spirit. we connect with who we really are.