Abraham J. Heschel Quotes
A Warsaw-born American rabbi and one of the leading Jewish theologians and Jewish philosophers of the 20th century.
(1907 - 1972)
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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.
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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.
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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.
[Self-Evident]
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God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance.
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He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor.
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It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?
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Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.
[Forgiveness]
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Man is a messenger who forgot the message.
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Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.
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Our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but how to remain human in the skyscrapers.
[Human Relations]
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Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.
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Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.
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The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.
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The road to the sacred leads through the secular.
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Then comes the insight that All is God. One still realizes that the world is as it was, but it does not matter, it does not affect one's faith.
[God]
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When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
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Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.
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Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.
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