Quotes About Wisdom

the love of truth is an act of the spirit.

A moment of insight is a fortune, transporting us beyond the confines of measured time.

We must, furthermore, realize that the harsh passages in the Bible are only contained in describing actions which were taken at particular moments and stand in sharp contrast with the compassion, justice and wisdom of the laws that were legislated for all times.

The best prophet of the future is our past.

We must never forget that there is a higher truth than the one we are able to comprehend at first sight.

Truth is the courage to fathom the facts in order to see how they relate to the Word.

The Bible is to be understood by the spirit that grows with it, wrestles with it, and prays with it.

The Greeks learned in order to comprehend. The Hebrews learned in order to revere. The modern man learns in order to use.

The Torah is primarily divine ways rather than divine laws.

There are five incomplete phenomena (or unripe fruits). The incomplete experience of death is sleep; an incomplete form of prophecy is dream; the incomplete form of the world to come is the Sabbath; the incomplete form of the heavenly light is the orb of the sun; the incomplete form of heavenly wisdom is the Torah.

the wise.5 This view had been the fundamental feature of his image of the world and the basis of his conduct in life. It justified the structure of his economic existence. He could permit his livelihood to be assured by his brother's strenuous and dangerous work, so that Maimonides could devote himself to realizing his plans in peace and quiet. This view also had a place in his self-confidence and probably aroused a certain awareness of the relationship of providence to his own life.

Two sources of religious thinking are given us: memory (tradition) and personal insight. We must rely on our memory and we must strive for fresh insight.

It is not enough to think about the prophets; we must think through the prophets. It is not enough to read the Bible for its wisdom; we must pray the Bible to comprehend its claim.

It is the Bible that enables us to know the Bible.

The way to understand the meaning of torah min hashamayim ("the Bible is from heaven") is to understand the meaning of hashamayim min hatorah ("heaven is from the Bible). Whatever taste of "heaven" we have on earth is in the Bible.

Freedom does not mean the right to live as we please. It means the power to live spiritually, to rise to a higher level of existence.

All I have learned, I learned from books.

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

Get books, sit yourself down anywhere, and go to reading them yourself.

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, And this too, shall pass away. How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride! How consoling in the depths of affliction!

Take all that you can of this book upon reason, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier man. (When a skeptic expressed surprise to see him reading a Bible)

A capacity, and taste, for reading, gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others. It is the key, or one of the keys, to the already solved problems. And not only so. It gives a relish, and facility, for successfully pursuing the [yet] unsolved ones.

Tis better people think you a fool, then open your mouth and erase all doubt.