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Prayer begins where our power ends.

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
Prayer
Ends
Power
Begins

More quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel

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A prophet's true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Being points beyond itself. Accustomed to think in terms of space, the expression being points beyond itself may be taken to denote a higher point in space. What is meant, however, is a higher category than being: the power of maintaining being.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Our age is one in which usefulness is thought to be the chief merit of nature in which the attainment of power, the utilization of its resources is taken to be the chief purpose of man in God's creation. Man has indeed become primarily a tool-making animal, and the world is now a gigantic tool box for the satisfaction of his needs.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Trust is the core of human relationships, of gregariousness among men. Friendship, a puzzle to the syllogistic and critical mentality, is not based on experiments or tests of another person's qualities but on trust. It is not critical knowledge but a risk of the heart which initiates affection and preserves loyalty in our fellow men.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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There are no two hours alike. Every hour is unique and the only one given at the moment, exclusive and endlessly precious. 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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it!
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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The work on weekdays and the rest on the seventh day are correlated. The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days the inspired.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Faith is an awareness of divine mutuality and companionship, a form of communion between God and man. It is not a psychical quality, something that exists in the mind only, but a force from the beyond.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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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We worship God through our questions.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Faith like Job's cannot be shaken becasue it is the result of having been shaken.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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I would say about individuals, A Individual dies when they cease to to be surprised. I am surprised every morning when I see the sunshine again. When I see an act of evil I don't accomodate, I don't accomodate myself to the violence that goes on everywhere. I am still so surprised! That is why I am against it. We must learn to be surprised.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Normal consciousness is a state of stupor, in which the sensibility to the wholly real and responsiveness to the stimuli of the spirit are reduced. The mystics, knowing that man is involved in a hidden history of the cosmos, endeavor to awake from the drowsiness and apathy and to regain the state of wakefulness for their enchanted souls.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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We can all do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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We worry a great deal about the problem of church and state. Now what about the church and God? Sometimes there seems to be a greater separation between the church and God than between the church and state.
Abraham Joshua Heschel