The Jewish Wisdom Database

In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.

Courage is a special kind of knowledge: the knowledge of how to fear what ought to be feared and how not to fear what ought not to be feared.

We have guarded the Book for thousands of years and it has guarded us.

The test of democracy is freedom to criticize.

The worse deceit is self-deceit.

The ghetto outlook divided the universe into two: this world for the Gentile and the next world for the Jew.

Without moral and intellectual independence, there can be no national independence.

No city in the world, not even Athens and Rome, ever played as great a role in the life of a nation for so long a time, as Jerusalem has done in the life of the Jewish people.

If a land has a soul, then Jerusalem is the soul of the Land of Israel.

Jerusalem is the very heart of the Jewish State.

1948, a year of uniqueness and blessing, which will shine always upon the life of every one of us, and its light will blaze in Jewish history for ever and ever.

The highest test for the Jewish State will be in its spirit, in its loyalty to the great purposes of the Prophets as they envisioned for the end of days.

Land is the source of life and creation, of culture and true independence.

The Land made us a people.

There is one thing a man cannot change---his parents.

Tradition must be a spring-board into the future, not an arm-chair for repose.

There is no cure for those who know the truth but mean to reject it.

Lord Samuel once said: 'The Jews are like all other peoples, but with a certain plus'; the Zionists, too, in respect of the Land of Israel are like all Jews, but also plus something.

There are times when an individual feels he should do those things which only can and should be done by the many. There is room for only one Prime Minister, but for those who make the desert bloom there is room for hundreds, thousands and even millions.

Thought is a strenuous art -- few practice it, and then only at rare times.

It is only in Hebrew that you feel the full meaning of it -- all the associations which a different word has.

The State of Israel will prove itself not by material wealth, not by military might or technical achievement, but by its moral character and human values.

The state of Israel represents and speaks only on behalf of its own citizens, and in no way presumes to represent or speak in the name of the Jews who are citizens of any other country.