There is never a Jewish community without its scholars, but where Jews may not be both intellectuals and Jews, they prefer to remain Jews.

Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth.

[I began to unload] the pyramid of honors, civic and literary, which had been heaped on me by the headlong process of rewarding a popular success. One day, I sat down and wrote a wholesale lot of letters of resignation. When I finished, I didn't belong to a single authors club or patriotic society. I was myself again, whatever that was.

Among the liveliest of my memories are those of eating and drinking; and I would sooner give up some of my delightful remembered walks, green trees, cool skies, and all, than to lose my images of suppers eaten on Sabbath evenings at the end of those walks.

The czar always got his dues, no matter if it ruined a family.

The past was only my cradle, and now it cannot hold me, because I am grown too big.

A long past vividly remembered is like a heavy garment that clings to your limbs when you would run.