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

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

More quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel

Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
A prophet's true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.
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
Knowledge-like the sky- is never private property. No teacher has a right to withhold it from anyone who asks for it. Teaching is the art of sharing.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
God is either of no importance, or of supreme importance.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
The test of love is in how one relates not to saints and scholars but to rascals.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
The essence of man is not what he is, but in what he is able to be.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
Awareness of the divine begins with wonder.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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
Image
Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of commitment.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
God is not nice. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
Faith is something that comes out of the soul. It is not an information that is absorbed but an attitude, existing prior to the formulation of any creed.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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
Image
When I marched with Martin Luther King in Selma, I felt my legs were praying.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Image
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
Image
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