“Mankind will not die for lack of information; it may perish for lack of appreciation.”

Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment.

In our daily lives we attend primarily to that which the senses are spelling out for us: to what the eyes perceive, to what the fingers touch.

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.

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.

Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.

Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one’s actions. Source: The Wisdom of Heschel

There is a built-in sense of indebtedness in the consciousness of man, an awareness of owing gratitude, or being caled upon at certain moments to reciprocate

We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes. … The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.

Indeed, the sort of crimes and even the amount of delinquency that fill the prophets of Israel with dismay do not go beyond that which we regard as normal, as typical ingredients of social dynamics.

In the second way he sees in what surrounds him things to be acknowledged, understood, valued or admired.

We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.

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.

feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal

Judaism teaches us to be attached to holiness in time; to learn how to consecrate sanctuaries that emerge from the magnificent stream of a year.

There are two primary ways in which mans relates himself to the world that surround him: manipulation and appreciation .

Acceptance is appreciation, and the high value of appreciation is such that to appreciate appreciation seems to be the fundamental prerequisite for survival.

I always appreciate my name in lights.

You can’t appreciate the good times without the bad ones.

To get the full value of joy you must have someone to divide it with.

Unless you have been to boarding-school when you are very young, it is absolutely impossible to appreciate the delights of living at home.

Attention is a strange sort of being, anyway, the idea of attention if someone appreciates your work. It’s always nice that someone appreciates your work.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

I was angry and frustrated until I started my own family and my first child was born. Until then I didn’t really appreciate life the way I should have, but fortunately I woke up.

We appreciate yesterday, but we’re looking for a better tomorrow.