“‘What did your rabbi consider the most essential thing?’ Whatever he happened to be engaged in at that particular moment he considered the most essential thing.”

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“Everything in the world may be imitated except truth, because truth that is imitated is no longer the truth.”

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“First learn, then form opinions.”

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“If you wish to know how much preferable wisdom is to gold, then observe: if you change gold you get silver for it, but your gold is gone; but if you exchange one sort of wisdom for another, you obtain fresh knowledge, and at the same time keep what you possessed before.”

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“One person buys a sheepskin to keep warm in winter, and another buys wood to light a fire. What is the difference between the two? The first wants to keep warm, but the second wants to warm others, too.”

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“Seek peace in your own place, within the self… Once a person establishes peace within the self, that person is capable of establishing it throughout the world.”

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“What is hateful to you, don’t do to your fellowmen. That is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary.”

Chapters: 63. Easy as Hard

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“To understand Hebrew scripture is not enough... we must transport ourselves into a distant land and an earlier age, and read it as the national poem of the Jews, a pastoral and agricultural people, written in ancient, simple, rustic, poetic, not philosophical or abstract language.”

— Isaiah Berlin 1909 – 1997 CE
"the world's greatest talker"
from The Proper Study of Mankind

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“The Torah is not the story of the Jews; it is what makes Judaism a story.”

— James P. Carse 1932 – 2020 CE
Thought-proving, influential, deep thinker
from Finite and Infinite Games

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“The Hebrew Old Testament eventually became a cornerstone of global human culture because it was warmly embraced by Christianity... In contrast, the Talmud—whose importance to Jewish culture far surpasses that of the Old Testament—was rejected... a great pity because the Talmud is a far more thoughtful and compassionate book than the Old Testament.”

— Yuval Harari יובל נח הררי‎ 1976 CE –
Israeli historian, professor, and philosopher

from 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

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“just like other great works of fiction, such as Don Quixote, War and Peace, and the Harry Potter books... much of the Bible may be fictional, but it can still bring joy to billions and can still encourage humans to be compassionate, courageous, and creative... billions of people have believed in these stories for thousands of years. Some fake news lasts forever.”

— Yuval Harari יובל נח הררי‎ 1976 CE –
Israeli historian, professor, and philosopher

from 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

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“The Old Testament, the Talmud, and many (though not all) rabbis maintained that the life of a Jew is more valuable than the life of a Gentile, which is why, for example, Jews are allowed to desecrate the Sabbath in order to save a Jew from death but are forbidden to do so merely in order to save a Gentile”

— Yuval Harari יובל נח הררי‎ 1976 CE –
Israeli historian, professor, and philosopher

from 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

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