54 Insightful Quotes By Abraham Joshua Heschel, The Distinguished Jewish Philosopher
Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.
Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart.
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.
Few are guilty, but all are responsible.
When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people.
Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living.
The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.
Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness.
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.
We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.
Prayer is our humble answer to the inconceivable surprise of living.
The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.
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.
Prayer begins where our power ends.
God is either of no importance, or of supreme importance.
A prophet's true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.
Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.
To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.
The prophets never taught that God and history are one, or that whatever happens below reflects the will of God above. Their vision is of man defying God, and God seeking man to reconcile with Him.
Only those will apprehend religion who can probe its depth, who can combine intuition and love with the rigor of method
The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God
Who is a Jew? A person whose integrity decays when unmoved by the knowledge of wrong done to other people.
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.
In Jewish tradition, dying in one’s sleep is called a kiss of God, and dying on the Sabbath is a gift that is merited by piety. For the pious person, my father once wrote, it is a privilege to die.
Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.
Wise criticism always begins with self-criticism.
There is a passion and drive for cruel deeds which only the awe and fear of God can soothe; there is a suffocating selfishness in man which only holiness can ventilate.
