The test of love is in how one relates not to saints and scholars but to rascals.

In prayer we shift the center of living from self-consciousness to self-surrender

Faith like Job's cannot be shaken becasue it is the result of having been shaken.

The course of life is unpredictable no one can write his autobiography in advance.

We can never sneer at the stars, mock the dawn, or scoff at the totality of being.

A prophet's true greatness is his ability to hold God and man in a single thought.

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

All that is left is to us is our being horrified at the loss of our sense of horror.

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

How embarrassing for man to be the greatest miracle on earth and not to understand it!

The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God

In any free society where terrible wrongs exist, some are guilty - all are responsible.

It is of the essence of virtue that the good is not to be done for the sake of a reward.

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

To sing means to sense and to affirm that the spirit is real and that its glory is present.

Spiritual life begins to decay when we fail to sense the grandeur of what is eternal in time.

Our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but how to remain human in the skyscrapers.

Celebration is a confrontation, giving attention to the transcendent meaning of one's actions.

The tragedy of religion is partly due to its isolation from life, as if God could be segregated.

Faith opens our hearts for the entrance of the holy. It is almost as though God were thinking for us.

The beginning of our happiness lies in the understanding that life without wonder is not worth living.

There is no specialized art of prayer. All of life must be a training to pray. We pray the way we live.

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.

Life is not meaningful...unle ss it is serving an end beyond itself; unless it is of value to someone else.

Everything is phenomenal; everything is incredible; never treat life casually. To be spiritual is to be amazed.

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

The problem to be faced is: how to combine loyalty to one's own tradition with reverence for different traditions.

Wonder or radical amazement is the chief characteristic of the religious man's attitude toward history and nature.

All events are secretly interrelated; the sweep of all we are doing reaches beyond the horizon of our comprehension.

We can all do our share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and all frustrations and all disappointments.

Never once in my life did I ask God for success or wisdom or power or fame. I asked for wonder, and he gave it to me.

Only those will apprehend religion who can probe its depth, who can combine intuition and love with the rigor of method

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.

(People) can never attain fulfillment, or sense of meaning, unless it is shared, unless it pertains to other human beings.

Solitude is a necessary protest to the incursions and the false alarms of society's hysteria, a period of cure and recovery.

Self-sufficiency, independence, the capacity to stand apart, to differ, to resist, and to defy-all are modes of being human.

In a controversy, the instant we feel anger, we have already ceased striving for truth and have begun striving for ourselves.

When religion speaks only in the name of authority rather than with the voice of compassion, its message becomes meaningless.

Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a market place for you.

Indifference to evil is more insidious than evil itself. It is a silent justification affording evil acceptability in society.

The work on weekdays and the rest on the seventh day are correlated. The Sabbath is the inspirer, the other days the inspired.

To abstain completely from all enjoyments may be easy. Yet to enjoy life and retain spiritual integrity - there is the challenge.

The degree to which one is sensitive to other people's suffering, to other (people's) humanity, is the index of one's own humanity

Ultimately there is no power to narcissistic, self-indulgent thinking. Authentic thinking originates with an encounter with the world.

The worship of reason is arrogance and betrays a lack of intelligence. The rejection of reason is cowardice and betrays a lack of faith.

To pray is to take notice of the wonder, to regain a sense of the mystery that animates all beings, the divine margin in all attainments.

The Sabbath is not for the sake of the weekdays; the weekdays are for the sake of Sabbath. It is not an interlude but the climax of living.

We forfeit the right to worship God as long as we continue to humiliate negroes. ... The hour calls for moral grandeur and spiritual audacity.

Then comes the insight that All is God. One still realizes that the world is as it was, but it does not matter, it does not affect one's faith.

Knowledge-like the sky- is never private property. No teacher has a right to withhold it from anyone who asks for it. Teaching is the art of sharing.

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