The Jewish tradition of learning-is learning. Adam chose knowledge instead of immortality.

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.

Today there isn't a university where they don't have special courses [Jewish studies or Holocaust studies], hundreds and hundreds of universities, young people today want to know more than their elders did, much more, and therefore I am very optimistic about young people.

Mankind needs peace more than ever, for our entire planet, threatened by nuclear war, is in danger of total destruction. A destruction only man can provoke, only man can prevent.

What of the Exodus? That too, is a wonderful story, but from the viewpoint of an historian, it is - to use a word scholars love - problematic. Let's say there are doubts, to say the least, among many scholars, as to whether the Exodus actually occurred. That's a historical issue.

Only fanatics — in religion as well as in politics — can find a meaning in someone else’s death.

[Tibet] is a small country based on religious principle, religious traditions. It never wanted any conquest.