Great Throughts Treasury

"Science does not make us happy; the highest morality alone is capable of conferring true happiness upon us."

"The highest good is not something visible, but that which is felt within the heart."

"To remember much is not necessarily to be wise."

"Belief cannot be commanded."

"Society's preservation and man's happiness depend on illusion. Nature itself, which certainly represents the will of God, deludes us in many respects, as when it leads us by the cords of love to reproduce the race. If a youth would consider the trouble in rearing a family, not one in a thousand would marry, but nature closes our eyes to the future (and indeed, wherever popular knowledge rises, the birth rate declines). The same is true of the other passions, which nature utilizes to deceive man and goad them toward the attainment of ends which, when attained, turn out to be but vanity."

"Judaism looks upon all human beings as children of one Father; thinks of them as all created in the image of God, and insists that a man be judged not by his religion, but his action."

"The feeling of pity alone is enough to make Man choose the good and reject the bad."

"Memory sustains man in the world of life."

"Not every one with a fabulous memory is clever."

"I esteem Maimonides very greatly but Moses the Lawgiver never dreamed of philosophy and the dreams of Aristotle."