Quotes from Abraham Joshua Heschel

The body without the spirit is a corpse; the spirit without the body is a ghost.

The human mind is one-sided. It can never grasp all of reality at once. When we look at things we see either the features which they have in common or the features that distinguish each of them.

A great event, miraculous as it may be, if it happened only once, will hardly be able to dominate forever the mind of man.

Two sources of religious thinking are given us: memory (tradition) and personal insight. We must rely on our memory and we must strive for fresh insight.

It is not enough to think about the prophets; we must think through the prophets. It is not enough to read the Bible for its wisdom; we must pray the Bible to comprehend its claim.

If a man says to you, I have labored and not found, do not believe him. If he says, I have not labored but still have found, do not believe him. If he says, I have labored and found, you may believe him.

This is the secret of the spirit, not disclosed to reason: the adaptation of the mind to what is sacred, intellectual humility in the presence of the supreme. The mind surrenders to the mystery of spirit, not in resignation but in love.

It is the Bible that enables us to know the Bible.

The prophetic word creates, shapes, changes, builds, and destroys (see Jeremiah 1:10).

Philosophy of religion conducted in this manner, then, celebrates humility before the divine, since the awareness of God's overwhelming priority decenters us and puts us in our proper place.

The soul is frail, but God is full of compassion for the distress of the soul, for the failure of the heart. It is said in the Talmud: "There are some who desire [to help others] but have not the means; whilst others have the means [and help] but have not the desire [to help]." Yet both kinds of people are holy in the eyes of God.

The role of religion is to be a challenge to philosophy, not merely an object for examination.