Abraham Joshua Heschel

“When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.”

“Racism is man's gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.”

“Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.”

“For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer... I felt my legs were praying.”

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

“Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme.”

“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.”

“The opposite of good is not evil, the opposite of good is indifference.”

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

“To be is to stand for.”

“Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement...get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted. Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.”

“The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space.”

“The most precious thing in the world is a sense of the sacred.”

“Prayer is not a stratagem for occasional use, a technical device for making life easier. It is a home for the spirit.”

“Morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings.”

“Remember that there is a meaning beyond absurdity. Know that every deed counts, that every word is power... Above all, remember that you must build your life as if it were a work of art.”