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.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHELWe can all do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments.
More Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
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A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children.
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A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time
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What is meant, however, is a higher category than being: the power of maintaining being.
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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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This may be the vocation of man: to say “Amen” to being and to the Author of being; to live in defiance of absurdity, notwithstanding futility and defeat; to attain faith in God even in spite of God.
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To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.
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The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.
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The time for the kingdom may be far off, but the task is plain: to retain our share in God in spite of peril and contempt.
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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.
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It is not a psychical quality, something that exists in the mind only, but a force from the beyond.
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To be is to stand for.
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Sometimes we wish the world could cry and tell us about that which made it pregnant with fear-filling grandeur. Sometimes we wish our own heart would speak of that which made it heavy with wonder.
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Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine.
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The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living.
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There is a war to wage against the vulgar, the glorification of the absurd, a war that is incessant, universal.
ABRAHAM JOSHUA HESCHEL