Quote

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

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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
Thought
Response
Refusing
Anything
Regard
Amazement
Take
Mystery
Confrontation
Thing
Beyond
Grandeur
Going
Honest
Final
Way
Wonder
Finals
Given
Radical
Reality
Granted
Transcends

More quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel

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There is no specialized art of prayer. All of life must be a training to pray. We pray the way we live.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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In any free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty - all are responsible.
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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There are few ideas in the world of thought which contain so much spiritual power as the idea of the Sabbath. Aeons hence, when of many of our cherished theories only shreds will remain, that cosmic tapestry will continue to shine.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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A religious man is a person... whose greatest passion is compassion.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Life without commitment is not worth living.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.
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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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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The task of life is to face sacred moments.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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
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Human being is both being in the world and living in the world. Living involves responsible understanding of one's role in relation to all other beings. For living is not being in itself, but living of the world, affecting, exploiting, consuming, comprehending, deriving, depriving.
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
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Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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The tragedy of religion is partly due to its isolation from life, as if God could be segregated.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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God is not nice. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.
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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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