Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity growswith the ability to say no to oneself. - Abraham Joshua Heschel
To us, recollection is a holy act; we sanctify the present by remembering the past. To us Jews, the essence of faith is memory. To believe is to remember. - Abraham Joshua Heschel
The surest way to suppress our ability to understand the meaning of God and the importance of worship is to take things for granted...Indifference to the sublime wonder of living is the root of sin. - Abraham Joshua Heschel
...morally speaking, there is no limit to the concern one must feel for the suffering of human beings, that indifference to evil is worse than evil itself, that in a free society, some are guilty, but all are responsible. - Abraham Joshua Heschel
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. - Abraham Joshua Heschel
Faith is not the clinging to a shrine but an endless pilgrimage of the heart. - Abraham Joshua Heschel
A religious man is a person who holds God and man in one thought at one time, at all times, who suffers harm done to others, whose greatest passion is compassion, whose greatest strength is love and defiance of despair. - Abraham Joshua Heschel