The Jewish Wisdom Database

Books are pouches of wisdom embroidered with pearly words.

Let your words be simple, that they need no interpreting; and let their meaning be understood, that they need no proof.

The critic must be like a grinding-stone: to grind and not to cut.

The ears are the gateway to the mind.

Exile is like a plant without soil or water; it withers without blossoming and it bears no fruit.

Grammar is to speech what salt is to food, it should be in the right dose.

People hate whatever they do not understand.

Just as love blindfolds you and you see no faults, so hate blindfolds you and you see no virtues.

Words that do not come from the heart will not enter the ear.

Any man that has a heart will long for homeland more than for his sustenance.

Ignorance is swiftly contagious.

There is no greater poverty than ignorance.

Jealousy is the worst of evils, because it hurts first one's friend.

Justice has but one form; injustice has many.

Logic is the scales of all science.

Memory cannot recall more than what was forgotten.

A man's intelligence is beneath the point of a pen.

The best of poems is that which men of intelligence are content with and the people understand.

The worst of mankind is he whose power of speech exceeds his power of thought.

The most important purpose of the precept is to straighten the heart.

No man is rewarded because God owes it to him, but God grants reward out of His grace.

If you do not suffer the toil of study, you will suffer the toil of ignorance.

Who keeps on knocking will succeed.

Just as the mirror should be more polished than the gazer, so should the teacher be more brilliant than the pupil.

Time is the most sublime and wisest teacher.