Quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel

God is either of no importance, or of supreme importance.

To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern.

To be or not to be is not the question, the vital question is how to be and how not to be…

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.

Prayer begins where our power ends.

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.

A prophet's true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.

A prophet's true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.

Philosophy, to be relevant, must offer us a wisdom to live by.

Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.

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.

God is not nice. God is not an uncle. God is an earthquake.

Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God.

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.

Faith opens our hearts for the entrance of the holy. It is almost as though God were thinking for us.

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.

To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.

We worship God through our questions.

The awe of God is wisdom.

He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor.

The issue of prayer is not prayer; the issue of prayer is God.

There is happiness in the love of labor, there is misery in the love of gain.

In the midst of our applauding the feats of civilization, the Bible flings itself like a knife slashing our complacency; remind us that God, too, has a voice in history.

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