Great Throughts Treasury

"When the heart is full, the eyes overflow."

"You can tell when a fool speaks: he grinds much and produces little."

"Men make mistakes not because they think they know when they do not know, but because they think others do not know."

"A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction."

"Gossip is nature's telephone."

"I mention her name and the old pain returns. Forget her, you say? How can you forget a living human being?"

"If somebody tells you you have ears like a donkey, pay no attention. But if two people tell you, buy yourself a saddle."

"Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor."

"There is nothing in the world, I tell you, so maddening as a person who doesn't answer when you abuse him. You shout and you scold, you are ready to burst a gut, and he stands there and smiles...."

"This is an ugly and mean world, and only to spite it we mustn't weep. If you want to know, this is the constant source of my good spirit, of my humor. Not to cry, out of spite, only to laugh out of spite, only to laugh."

"You see how it is, my dear friends. There's no pleasing everyone. It's hopeless to even try, and the more you play the peacemaker, the less peaceful things become."

"The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger."

"Nothing begets friendship so readily as trouble."

"No matter how bad things get you got to go on living, even if it kills you."

"A cantor, when he starts singing, it?s like rain ? once it starts, it?s hard to stop."

"A real pleasure is a pleasure that one enjoys by one?s self, without a companion, and without a single argument"

"A wise word is not a substitute for a piece of herring."

"Ah, how many luxuries has the good God prepared for his Jewish children."

"And books -- she swallows like dumplings."

"And in the next three hours he gave me a song and dance about how he had made from one ruble three and from three ten. "First of all," he said, "you take a hundred, and you tell them to buy ten shares" or whatever he called them. "You wait a few days till they go up. You send a telegram and tell them to sell, and for that money you buy twice as many. Then you start all over again and again send off a telegram, until finally from the hundred, you have two; from the two, four; and from the four, eight; from the eight, sixteen?wonder of wonders!""

"As always, Tevye turns the global, big-picture into the local, small-picture, just like in his debates with God, where he ascribes some petty and small-time motivations to a deity. Here, although the priest might be doing a turn-the-other-cheek thing or whatever, Tevye assumes that he's actually laughing at the Chava-Chvedka situation."

"Awesome. So Tevye's two strategies for dealing with his daughters' marriages are: meddle, meddle, meddle; or totally ignore it. No in-betweens for this guy."

"Don't compare me to Hodl, Beilke said. "Hodl lived at a time when the whole world was in chaos, about to turn upside down, and people were worrying about that and forgetting about themselves. But now," she said, "that the world is calm again, everyone is worried about himself, and they've forgotten about the world.""

"Here lies a plain and simple Jew who wrote in plain and simple prose."

"I avoid long discussions with this priest because right away we get into the whole business of your God and our God. I cut him off with a proverb and tell him we have a fitting commentary. Then he cuts me off and says he knows the commentaries as well as I do and perhaps better, and then he begins to recite from memory from our Bible? I get very angry and pour out whatever comes out of my mouth. Do you think that bothers him? Not at all. He looks at me and laughs? At that time I didn't understand that little smile, but now I know what it meant."

"I beg you, Pani Sholem Aleichem, not to be upset with me, as I am an ordinary man and you certainly know more than I do?who can question that? After all, living one's whole life in a little village, one is ignorant. Who has time to look into a holy book or to learn a verse of the Bible or Rashi? Luckily when summer comes around, the Yehupetz rich folk take off to their dachas in Boiberik, and every now and then I can get together with an educated person to hear some wisdom. Believe me when I tell you how well I remember that day when you sat with me in the woods listening to my foolish tales. That meant more to me than anything in the world! ("

"I never turn down a drink. Among friend's it's always appropriate. A man is only a man as they say but brandy is still brandy. You'll find that in the Talmud too."

"If the rich could hire the poor to die for them - the poor would become rich."

"If you listen carefully, you get to hear everything you didn't want to hear in the first place."

"It is an old custom amongst Jewish children, to become war-like on the 'L'ag Beomer.' They arm themselves from head to foot with wooden swords, pop-guns and bows and arrows. They take food with them, and go off to wage war."

"It is not the seas that divide the peoples, but the peoples that divide the seas."

"Lawyers are just like physicians: what one says, the other contradicts."

"Life is a taste of paradise."

"Many are the thoughts in a man's heart?isn't that what it says in holy Torah? I don't need to interpret that verse for you, Reb Sholem Aleichem. But in Ashkenaz, or plain Yiddish, it means: "The best horse needs a whip, the smartest person?advice?" Only when God showed his favor to Tevye, suddenly made me rich so I could finally make something of myself, put away a few rubles, only then did the world take notice? Many good friends suddenly began to show up, as the verse says: All are beloved, all are elect?when God grants a spoonful, people offer a shovelful. Every person came with his own advice."

"Mazel tov! We have here a new philosopher, fresh from the oven! I said. "As if I didn't have enough enlightened daughters, now Tevye's wife has also started to spread her wings and fly!""

"No matter how we keep from boasting about it, we must admit that we Jews are, after all, the best and the smartest people. As the Prophet says: Who can be compared to Israel? How can a goy compare himself to a Jew? A goy is a goy, and a Jew is a Jew, as you yourself say in your writings. You have to be born a Jew, blessed is the Jew. How lucky I was to be born a Jew and know the taste of exile and of always wandering, never sleeping where we spent the day."

"No one knows whom the shoe pinches ? no one."

"Of him they said the proverb had been invented: All good swimmers are drowned."

"One cannot live on potatoes alone. It is said that one wants bread with potatoes. And when there's no bread, a Jew takes his stick, and goes through the village in search of business."

"Playing nuts is a game like any other, neither better than tops, nor worse than cards. The game is played in various ways. There are ?holes? and ?bank? and ?caps.? But every game finishes up in the same way. One boy loses, another wins. And, as always, he who wins is a clever fellow, a smart fellow, a good fellow"

"Remember, you must not sleep at the Seder. If you do, Elijah the Prophet will come with a bag on his shoulders. On the two first nights of Passover, Elijah the Prophet goes about looking for those who have fallen asleep at the Seder, and takes them away in his bag"

"So tell me, dear child, what is Chanukah? Chanukah? Grishka repeats, and his shiny black eyes start darting up and down and back and forth like little mice. Chanukah? Chanukah? Sechas... (Hold on...) Der Papashe, di Mamashe...der Papashe est...eats...what do you call them? Matzah and shaloch mones. And the Mamasha swings a white rooster like that...and eats Jewish krepliks. Grishka points to his head, demonstrating how his mother performs the ritual of kapoires, and then he licks his lips remembering Jewish kreplach."

"Tevye has a good racket going on here, seeming to flatter the dude who's going to ostensibly write about him while actually praising himself. For example, there is a deft little maneuver when Tevye says that small-time village shmoes really have no time "to look into a holy book"? which is really a huge self-pat on the back. You know who's just bursting with Bible references? Everyone's favorite dairyman."

"The poor man has as many enemies as there are rich people in the world and vice versa."

"The worm in the radish doesn't think there is anything sweeter."

"There are people who have never been taught anything, and know everything, have never been anywhere, and understand everything, have never given a moment's thought to anything, and comprehend everything. 'Blessed hands' is the name bestowed on these fortunate beings. The world envies, honours and respects them."

"They say that children become men, and men become children. Many generations have grown up, become men, and gone hence."

"To go to the synagogue with one?s father on the Passover eve ? is there in the world a greater pleasure than that? What is it worth to be dressed in new clothes from head to foot, and to show off before one?s friends? Then the prayers themselves ? the first Festival evening prayer and blessing"

"To tell the truth, my wife Golde, God rest her soul, was the wisest one of all, if only because she saw what was going on around her, said goodbye to this foolish world, and left it. Tell me yourself?rather than suffering because of daughters, as Tevye has, is it not a thousand times better to lie in the ground and bake bagels? How did our rabbis say: Regardless of thy will thou livest?man does not take his fate into his own hands, and if he does he gets his knuckles rapped."

"What a weird bit here. Even though the ending yet again reinforces Tevye's main point about how God is in constant control of everything so just get your hands off the wheel already, the first part about Golde reveals that she was wise enough to actually grab some control back from God and His plans. Sure, it was by dying and all, but still, the language totes makes it sound like it was her own decision to forget the worldly nonsense around her."