Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes
The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.
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.
Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.
Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment.
The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God
We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
It is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward.
In the midst of our applauding the feats of civilization, the Bible flings itself like a knife slashing our complacency; remind us that God, too, has a voice in history.
In prayer we shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender
Faith opens our hearts for the entrance of the holy. It is almost as though God were thinking for us.
All that is left is to us is our being horrified at the loss of our sense of horror.
Then comes the insight that All is God. One still realizes that the world is as it was, but it does not matter, it does not affect one's faith.
To sing means to sense and to affirm that the spirit is real and that its glory is present.
Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.
Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and the false alarms of society's hysteria, a period of cure and recovery.
The work on weekdays and the rest on the seventh day are correlated. The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days the inspired.
Knowledge-like the sky- is never private property. No teacher has a right to withhold it from anyone who asks for it. Teaching is the art of sharing.
Faith is something that comes out of the soul. It is not an information that is absorbed but an attitude, existing prior to the formulation of any creed.
The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.
The riches of the soul are stored up in its memory. this is the test of character, not whether a man follows the daily fashion, but whether the past is alive in his present.
He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor.
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.
Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
We may not know whether our understanding is correct, or whether our sentiments are noble, but the air of the day surrounds us like spring which spreads over the land without our aid or notice.
How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it!
It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?
Self-sufficiency, independence, the capacity to stand apart, to differ, to resist, and to defy-all are modes of being human.
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.
All events are secretly interrelated; the sweep of all we are doing reaches beyond the horizon of our comprehension.
Those of faith who plant sacred thoughts in the uplands of time, the secret gardeners of the Lord in mankind's desolate hopes, may slacken and tarry but rarely betray their vocation.