Quote

Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a refuge to resort to now and then. It is rather like an established residence for the innermost self. All things have a home: the bird has a nest, the fox has a hole, the bee has a hive. A soul without prayer is a soul without a home.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Abraham Joshua Heschel
Age: 65 †
Born: 1907
Born: January 11
Died: 1972
Died: December 23
Judaic Scholar
Philosopher
Rabbi
University Teacher
Warszawa
Abraham Heschel
Like
Prayer
Foxes
Stratagem
Rather
Occasional
Hives
Use
Bees
Residence
Home
Refuge
Innermost
Soul
Hole
Nest
Without
Established
Resort
Self
Holes
Nests
Things
Bird
Resorts
Hive

More quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Image
Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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
Image
Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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
Image
The issue of prayer is not prayer the issue of prayer is God. One cannot pray unless he has faith in his own ability to accost the infinite, merciful, eternal God.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
Awe enables us to see in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple, to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
Pagans exalt sacred things, the Prophets extol sacred deeds.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
Self-sufficiency, independence, the capacity to stand apart, to differ, to resist, and to defy-all are modes of being human.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
A religious man is a person... whose greatest passion is compassion.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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?
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
The issue of prayer is not prayer the issue of prayer is God.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
We worship God through our questions.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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
Image
It is gratefulness which makes the soul great.
Abraham Joshua Heschel