Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes

It is not a psychical quality, something that exists in the mind only, but a force from the beyond.

As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Such decline is an alarming symptom of our state of mind.

Man’s sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.

It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world.

Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.

Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is a silent justification affording evil acceptability in society.

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

Friendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person’s qualities but on trust.

Prayer begins where our power ends.

Society today is no longer in revolt against particular laws which it finds alien, unjust, and imposed, but against law as such, against the principle of law.