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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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Abraham Joshua Heschel
Age: 65 †
Born: 1907
Born: January 11
Died: 1972
Died: December 23
Judaic Scholar
Philosopher
Rabbi
University Teacher
Warszawa
Abraham Heschel
Success
Power
Never
Fame
Life
Gave
Asked
Wonder
Wisdom
Asks
More quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel
When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendors of the past when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity - there is the challenge.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes. ... The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. Audacious longing, burning songs, daring thoughts, an impulse overwhelming the heart, usurping the mind--these are all a drive towards serving Him who rings our hearts like a bell. It is as if He were waiting to enter our empty, perishing lives.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Faith like Job's cannot be shaken becasue it is the result of having been shaken.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Wise criticism always begins with self-criticism.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Only those will apprehend religion who can probe its depth, who can combine intuition and love with the rigor of method
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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. It is our honest response to the grandeur and mystery of reality our confrontation with that which transcends the given.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The tragedy of religion is partly due to its isolation from life, as if God could be segregated.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
People are anxious to save up financial means for old age they should also be anxious to prepare a spiritual means for old age.... Wisdom, maturity, tranquility do not come all of a sudden when we retire.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
To become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
