Abraham Joshua Heschel

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

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.

A test of a people is how it behaves toward the old. It is easy to love children. Even tyrants and dictators make a point of being fond of children. But the affection and care for the old, the incurable, the helpless are the true gold mines of a culture.

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.

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

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

God is of no importance unless He is of supreme importance.

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.

Man is a messenger who forgot the message.

It is not enough for me to ask question; I want to know how to answer the one question that seems to encompass everything I face: What am I here for?

He who is satisfied has never truly craved, and he who craves for the light of God neglects his ease for ardor.

The road to the sacred leads through the secular.

God is not a hypothesis derived from logical assumptions, but an immediate insight, self-evident as light. He is not something to be sought in the darkness with the light of reason. He is the light.

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

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.