English En
  • Deutsche De
  • English En
  • Français Fr
  • Русский Ru

We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our marketing and analytics partners who may combine it with other information you've provided to them or which they've separately collected from you. You also may to see our Privacy Policy. By clicking the OK button below, you accept our cookies.

Authors:
Abraham Joshua Heschel Quotes

Abraham Joshua Heschel quotes

Polish Educator January 11, 1907 – December 23, 1972

Cite this Page: Citation

Quotes

Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power...Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art. Abraham Joshua Heschel
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
This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the hidden love and wisdom in all things. Abraham Joshua Heschel
It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living... Abraham Joshua Heschel
A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture. Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel quote: "Only those will apprehend religion who can probe its depth,..."
Only those will apprehend religion who can probe its depth, who can combine intuition and love with the rigor of method Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel quote: "The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that..."
The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living. Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel quote: "Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or..."
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
Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. ....get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. Abraham Joshua Heschel
I have one talent, and that is the capacity to be tremendously surprised, surprised at life, at ideas. This is to me the supreme Hasidic imperative: Don't be old. Don't be stale. Abraham Joshua Heschel
Abraham Joshua Heschel quote: "Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the..."
Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature. Abraham Joshua Heschel
to become aware of the ineffable is to part company with words...the tangent to the curve of human experience lies beyond the limits of language. the world of things we perceive is but a veil. It’s flutter is music, its ornament science, but what it conceals is inscrutable. It’s silence remains unbroken; no words can carry it away. 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... Abraham Joshua Heschel
In our own lives the voice of God speaks slowly, a syllable at a time. Reaching the peak of years, dispelling some of our intimate illusions and learning how to spell the meaning of life-experiences backwards, some of us discover how the scattered syllables form a single phrase. Abraham Joshua Heschel
People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active state, an act of expressing reverence or appreciation. To be entertained is a passive state--it is to receive pleasure afforded by an amusing act or a spectacle.... Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions. Source: The Wisdom of Heschel Abraham Joshua Heschel
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

Popular Author

Related Authors