Quotes from Dennis Prager

One major goal of this book is to present as thorough a dissection of Leftism as has been written.

If a married individual thought as negatively about his or her spouse as the American Left does about America, we would find that individual's proclamations of deep love for the spouse difficult to believe.

9. The God introduced by the Torah began the long journey to belief in human equality—solely as a result of the Torah statement that each of us is created in God's image. Slavery was abolished on a wide scale first in the Western world—by Christians who were rooted in the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew Bible and who specifically cited the Torah doctrine that all humans are created in God's image. 10.

Also, the Israelites must have admired this man who chose to be one of them, when he could have led an utterly charmed life as an Egyptian prince.

Human beings tend to much more quickly forget the good others have done for them than the bad others have done to them. That's human nature.

The god of compassion is NOT the god of justice.

The Torah's view is we are supposed to be preoccupied with making this world as heavenly as possible. Those who live by its moral laws and values are best able to achieve that goal.

Remembering—the good others have done, the evil others have done, and one's moral obligations—is an indispensable aspect of a good and meaningful life.

But we pay a price for everyone's putting on a happy face—we start believing that life for everyone else is great. I wonder what effect

Not only were the couples unhappy from their respective fights, they are now even more unhappy as a result of comparing themselves with the other couple!

Victor Hamilton writes: "Regarding the serpent's origin, we are clearly told that he was an animal made by God. This information immediately removes any possibility that the serpent is to be viewed as some kind of supernatural, divine force. There is no room here for any dualistic ideas about the origins of good and evil.

Many of the horrors of the twentieth century were supported by people with good intentions who lacked wisdom.

However, one big obstacle to truth-telling is that believers in causes, including good causes, that don't place truth as a central value, will be very tempted to lie on behalf of their cause.

Suffering is no guarantee of empathy and the decent behavior it engenders. When people emerge from pain and oppression, they have two options: they can use their anger over their suffering to legitimize their oppression of others; or they can use the memory of their pain to empathize with others. Suffering ennobles only those who want to be ennobled by it.

it is Christians who have been primarily responsible for disseminating knowledge of the Torah to so much of the world.

While individual human beings do enormous good, mankind has always been morally unimpressive.

Corruption is the primary reason societies fail to thrive; societies in which corruption is held in check prosper economically, socially, and morally. Nothing explains the success or failure of countries more than does the presence or absence of corruption.

People have too often valued "proper" religious beliefs more than proper moral behavior, and even slaughtered others for not having the right religious beliefs. This is a common occurrence even in our time.

Expectations Undermine Gratitude, the Key to Happiness

Yes, there is a "secret to happiness"—and it is gratitude.

The waters below are mayim (the Hebrew word for "water"), and waters above are sham-mayim—which some, but by no means all, scholars believe means "water there" (sham is Hebrew for "there").

God's curse de-deified the serpent, which was worshipped in many pagan societies, including the Egyptian, Sumerian, Hittite, and Canaanite. Throughout the Torah, the Torah seeks to undermine polytheism by dethroning the gods of the ancient world.

Very often the reason that people reach faulty conclusions is not their inability to reason; it is that they reason from faulty premises.

Children are God's or nature's practical joke on couples—that which is produced by passion then proceeds to nearly kill it.