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We do not step out of the world when we pray we merely see the world in a different setting. The self is not the hub but the spoke of the revolving wheel. It is precisely the function of prayer to shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender.

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
Self
Merely
Shift
Different
Praying
Precisely
World
Function
Wheels
Step
Settings
Hub
Steps
Surrender
Revolving
Consciousness
Center
Wheel
Prayer
Setting
Spokes
Living
Pray
Spoke

More quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel

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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.
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In any free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty - all are responsible.
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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, to sense a ray of God's radiance in the jungles of history.
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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.
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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.
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The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.
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Everything is phenomenal everything is incredible never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.
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Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.
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All action is vicarious faith.
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When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
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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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Life without commitment is not worth living.
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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The awe of God is wisdom.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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To serve does not mean to surrender but to share.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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New insight begins when satisfaction comes to an end, when all that has been seen, said, or done looks like a distortion. ... Man's true fulfillment depends on communion with that which transcends him.
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To sing means to sense and to affirm that the spirit is real and that its glory is present.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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.
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To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity - there is the challenge.
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Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.
Abraham Joshua Heschel