Quote

(People) can never attain fulfillment, or sense of meaning, unless it is shared, unless it pertains to other human beings.

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
Sense
Human
Pertains
Attain
Humans
Shared
Never
Fulfillment
People
Beings
Meaning
Unless

More quotes by Abraham Joshua Heschel

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A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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
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Acceptance is appreciation, and the high value of appreciation is such that to appreciate appreciation seems to be the fundamental prerequisite for survival. Mankind will not die for lack of information it may perish for lack of appreciation.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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The issue of prayer is not prayer the issue of prayer is God.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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We must first peer into the darkness, feel strangled and entombed in the hopelessness of living without God, before we are ready to feel the presence of His living light.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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It is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is a silent justification affording evil acceptability in society.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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
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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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Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God
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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We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes. ... The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.
Abraham Joshua Heschel
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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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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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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
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In the darkest night to be certain of the dawn...to go through Hell and to continue to trust in the goodness of God-this is the challenge and the way.
Abraham Joshua Heschel