Quotes about Man

Man's Place in Nature.

The science of a religious man must be scientific; the religion of a scientific man must be religious.

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.

Faced with the mind-surpassing grandeur of the universe, we cannot but admit that there is meaning which is greater than man.

Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.

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.

The Sabbath is the presence of God in the world, open to the soul of man." God is not in things of space, but in moments of time.

There is no reverence for God without reverence for man. Love of man is the way to the love of God.

Judaism is God's quest for man.

The laws of the Torah ask of each generation to fulfill what is within its power to fulfill. Some of its laws (for example Exodus 21:2 ff),14 do not represent ideals but compromises, realistic attempts to refine the moral condition of ancient man.

The mystic experience is man's turning toward God; the prophetic act is God's turning toward man. The former is first of all an event in the life of man, contingent on the aspiration and initiative of man; the latter is first of all an event in the life of God, contingent on the pathos and initiative of God. From the mystic experience we may gain an insight of man into the life of God; from the prophetic act we learn of an insight of God into the life of man.

Above all it never ceases to proclaim that worship of God without justice to man is an abomination; that while man's problem is God, God's problem is man.