Abraham Joshua Heschel

Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.

Normal consciousness is a state of stupor, in which the sensibility to the wholly real and responsiveness to the stimuli of the spirit are reduced. The mystics, knowing that man is involved in a hidden history of the cosmos, endeavor to awake from the drowsiness and apathy and to regain the state of wakefulness for their enchanted souls.

Prayer cannot bring water to parched fields, or mend a broken bridge, or rebuild a ruined city; but prayer can water an arid soul, mend a broken heart, and rebuild a weakened will.

The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.

We worship God through our questions.

When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.

The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God

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

The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.

There is no specialized art of prayer. All of life must be a training to pray. We pray the way we live.

Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and the false alarms of society's hysteria, a period of cure and recovery.

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.

The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.

Self-respect is the fruit of discipline.

We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.

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

To sing means to sense and to affirm that the spirit is real and that its glory is present.

Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a market place for you.

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

We are closer to God when we are asking questions than when we think we have the answers.

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.