Harold S. Kushner quotes - page 2

We do ourselves and others a disservice when we make old age something to be feared. Life is not a resource to be used up, so that the older we get, the less life we have left. Life is the accumulation of wisdom, love and experience of people encountered and obstacles overcome. The longer we live, the more life we possess. (Harold S. Kushner)

Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Those rewards create almost as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it.

Harold S. Kushner

Given the unfairness that strikes so many people in life, I would rather believe in a God of limited power and unlimited love and justice, rather than the other way around.

Harold S. Kushner

When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: Ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul.

Harold S. Kushner

Forgiveness is a favor we do for ourselves, not a favor we do to the other party.

Harold S. Kushner

The soul is not a physical entity, but instead refers to everything about us that is not physical - our values, memories, identity, sense of humor. Since the soul represents the parts of the human being that are not physical, it cannot get sick, it cannot die, it cannot disappear. In short, the soul is immortal.

Harold S. Kushner

The circumstances of your life have uniquely qualified you to make a contribution. And if you don't make that contribution, nobody else can make it.

Harold S. Kushner

The small choices and decisions we make a hundred times a day add up to determining the kind of world we live in.

Harold S. Kushner

What cannot be achieved in one lifetime will happen when one lifetime is joined to another.

Harold S. Kushner

Our inability to see the beauty doesn't suggest in the slightest that beauty is not there. Rather, it suggests that we are not looking carefully enough or with broad enough perspective to see the beauty.

Harold S. Kushner

None of us has the power to make someone else love us. But we all have the power to give away love, to love other people. And if we do so, we change the kind of world we live in. (Harold S. Kushner)

It is tempting at one level to believe that bad things happen to people (especially other people) because God is a righteous judge who gives them exactly what they deserve. By believing that we keep the world orderly and understandable.... But [this belief] has a number of serious limitations.... It teaches people to blame themselves. It creates guilt when there is no basis for guilt. And most disturbing of all, it does not even fit the facts.

Harold S. Kushner

I'm not perfect, ... But i'm enough.

Harold S. Kushner

I am quite confident that the most important part of a human being is not his physical body but his nonphysical essence, which some people call soul and others, personality... The nonphysical part cannot die and cannot decay because it's not physical.

Harold S. Kushner

I said in an interview at the time that God's job is not to make sick people healthy. That's the doctors' job. God's job is to make sick people brave.

Harold S. Kushner

When facing a dilemma, choose the more morally demanding alternative.

Harold S. Kushner

I suspect that the happiest people you know are the ones who work at being kind, helpful and reliable - and happiness sneaks into their lives while they are busy doing those things. It is a by-product, never a primary goal.

Harold S. Kushner

Never attribute to malice or other deliberate decision what can be explained by human frailty, imperfection, or ignorance.

Harold S. Kushner

When a mentally retarded child is born, the religious question we often ask is, "Why does God let this happen?" The better question to pose is to ask, "What kind of community should we be so that mental retardation isn't a barrier to the enjoyment of one's full humanity?"

Harold S. Kushner

People are so busy chasing happiness- if they would slow down and turn around, they would give it a chance to catch up with them.

Harold S. Kushner

Our society puts too much emphasis on finding someone who will love you; our culture focuses too much on being loved and not enough on being a loving person. (Harold S. Kushner)

Being kind to others is a way of being good to yourself.

Harold S. Kushner

Prayer is simply coming into the presence of God. Because when you come into the presence of God, even the things you don't have matter a lot less.

Harold S. Kushner

We pray to you, O God ... for strength, determination, and willpower, to do instead of just to pray, to become instead of merely to wish.

Harold S. Kushner

Everything that God created is potentially holy, and our task as humans is to find that holiness in seemingly unholy situations. When we can do this, we will have learned to nurture our souls.

Harold S. Kushner

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