John > John's Quotes

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  • #1
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    “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.”
    Abraham Joshua Heschel

  • #2
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    “Self-respect is the root of discipline: The sense of dignity grows
    with the ability to say no to oneself.”
    Abraham Joshua Heschel

  • #3
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    “The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.”
    Abraham Joshua Heschel

  • #4
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    “It is customary to blame secular science and anti-religious philosophy for the eclipse of religion in modern society. It would be more honest to blame religion for its own defeats. Religion declined not because it was refuted, but because it became irrelevant, dull, oppressive, insipid. When faith is completely replaced by creed, worship by discipline, love by habit; when the crisis of today is ignored because of the splendor of the past; when faith becomes an heirloom rather than a living fountain; when religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion--its message becomes meaningless.”
    Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man: A Philosophy of Judaism

  • #5
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    “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.”
    Abraham Joshua Heschel

  • #6
    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 Heschel

  • #7
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    “Prayer begins at the edge of emptiness.”
    Abraham Joshua Heschel

  • #8
    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
    tags: time

  • #9
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    “The Search for reason ends at the known; on the immense expanse beyond it only the sense of the ineffable can glide. It alone knows the route to that which is remote from experience and understanding. Neither of them is amphibious: reason cannot go beyond the shore, and the sense of the ineffable is out of place where we measure, where we weigh. We do not leave the shore of the known in search of adventure or suspense or because of the failure of reason to answer our questions. We sail because our mind is like a fantastic seashell, and when applying our ear to its lips we hear a perpetual murmur from the waves beyond the shore. Citizens of two realms, we all must sustain a dual allegiance: we sense the ineffable in one realm, we name and exploit reality in another. Between the two we set up a system of references, but we can never fill the gap. They are as far and as close to each other as time and calendar, as violin and melody, as life and what lies beyond the last breath.”
    Abraham Joshua Heschel, Man Is Not Alone: A Philosophy of Religion

  • #10
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    “God is either of no importance, or of supreme importance.”
    Abraham Joshua Heschel

  • #11
    Abraham Lincoln
    “Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung”
    Abraham Lincoln

  • #12
    Abraham Joshua Heschel
    “To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.”
    Abraham Heschel

  • #13
    Benjamin Franklin
    “Security without liberty is called prison.”
    Benjamin Franklin

  • #14
    Benjamin Franklin
    “Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.”
    Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack

  • #15
    Benjamin Franklin
    “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
    Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

  • #16
    Benjamin Franklin
    “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
    Benjamin Franklin

  • #17
    Benjamin Franklin
    “It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
    Benjamin Franklin

  • #18
    Benjamin Franklin
    “If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.”
    Benjamin Franklin

  • #19
    Robert A. Heinlein
    “...I have this one nasty habit. Makes me hard to live with. I write...

    ...writing is antisocial. It's as solitary as masturbation. Disturb a writer when he is in the throes of creation and he is likely to turn and bite right to the bone... and not even know that he's doing it. As writers' wives and husbands often learn to their horror...

    ...there is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized. Or even cured. In a household with more than one person, of which one is a writer, the only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private, and where food can be poked in to him with a stick. Because, if you disturb the patient at such times, he may break into tears or become violent. Or he may not hear you at all... and, if you shake him at this stage, he bites...”
    Robert Heinlen



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