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Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.
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
Nature
Radical
Men
Toward
Attitude
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Amazement
Wonder
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More quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel
Understanding God is not attained by calling into session all arguments for and against Him, in order to debate whether He is a reality or a figment of the mind. God cannot be sensed as a second thought, as an explanation of the origin of the universe. He is either the first and the last, or just another concept.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Awareness of the divine begins with wonder.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The tragedy of religion is partly due to its isolation from life, as if God could be segregated.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Life is not meaningful...unle ss it is serving an end beyond itself unless it is of value to someone else.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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
To be is to stand for.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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. And yet we must not regard this revolt as entirely negative. The energy that rejects many obsolete laws is an entirely positive impulse for renewal of life and law.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don't be old. Don't be stale.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
There is a built-in sense of indebtedness in the consciousness of man, an awareness of owing gratitude, or being caled upon at certain moments to reciprocate, to answer, to live in a way which is compatible with the grandeur and mystery of living.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
It is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a market place for you.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
