Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
“Awe rather than faith is the cardinal attitude of the religious Jew.” — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
To sing means to sense and to affirm that the spirit is real and that its glory is present. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
The tragedy of religion is partly due to its isolation from life, as if God could be segregated. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
Only those will apprehend religion who can probe its depth, who can combine intuition and love with the rigor of method — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
Faith like Job's cannot be shaken becasue it is the result of having been shaken. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity - there is the challenge. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
Those of faith who plant sacred thoughts in the uplands of time, the secret gardeners of the Lord in mankind's desolate hopes,… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
“Replete is the world with a spiritual radiance, replete with sublime and marvelous secrets. But a small hand held against the eye… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
Then comes the insight that All is God. One still realizes that the world is as it was, but it does not… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
We worry a great deal about the problem of church and state. Now what about the church and God? Sometimes there seems… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
“The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. In a religious… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
“The Sabbath is the most precious present mankind has received from the treasure house of God. All week we think: The spirit… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
“Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time. Our intention here is… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
“It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
One of the major symptoms of the general crisis existent in our world today is our lack of sensitivity to words. We… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
“The mind’s preoccupation with things of space affects, to this day, all activities of man. Even religions are frequently dominated by the… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
Faith opens our hearts for the entrance of the holy. It is almost as though God were thinking for us. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
A religious man is a person... whose greatest passion is compassion. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
This is one of the goals of the Jewish way of living: to experience commonplace deeds as spiritual adventures, to feel the… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
Religion has become an impersonal affair, an institutional loyalty. It survives on the level of activities rather than in the stillness of… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share Image
“The primitive mind finds it hard to realize an idea without the aid of imagination, and it is the realm of space where imagination… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
“There is a passion and drive for cruel deeds which only the awe and fear of God can soothe; there is a suffocating selfishness… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
People of our time are losing the power of celebration. Instead of celebrating we seek to be amused or entertained. Celebration is an active… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
“Usually we regard as meaningful that which can be expressed, and as meaningless that which cannot be expressed. Yet, the equation of the meaningful… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
Understanding God is not attained by calling into session all arguments for and against Him, in order to debate whether He is a reality… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is a silent justification affording evil acceptability in society. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
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 Copy Share
The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions. — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
The degree to which one is sensitive to other people's suffering, to other (people's) humanity, is the index of one's own humanity — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
Acceptance is appreciation, and the high value of appreciation is such that to appreciate appreciation seems to be the fundamental prerequisite for survival. Mankind… — Abraham Joshua Heschel Copy Share
