Quotes from 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.

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.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline; the sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself.

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.

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.

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.