Don't look up to heaven, for what will you see in the sky, except stars, luminous but cold, wholly insensitive to pity?

[About Jews] Sheer egotism compels us to the purest love of mankind as a whole.... Our hearts are like a sponge, receptive to all the newest humanitarian ideas; and our sympathy goes out to all the unfortunate, all the oppressed.

A letter depends on how you read it, a melody on how you sing it.

In this world it is very dangerous to be weak.

We take a drink only for the sake of the benediction.

The Hebrew language... is the only glue which holds together our scattered bones. It also holds together the rings in the chain of time.... It binds us to those who built pyramids, to those who shed their blood on the ramparts of Jerusalem, and to those who, at the burning stakes, cried Shema Yisrael!

Prayer sometimes dulls the hunger of the pauper, like a mother's finger thrust into the mouth of her starving baby.