Great Throughts Treasury

"You cannot find peace anywhere save in your own self."

"But when feeling high and mighty one should reach into the left pocket, and find the words: "I am but dust and ashes.""

"I could revive the dead, but I have more difficulty reviving the living."

"The slightest [sense of] depression is clothed in pride."

"Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he or she can reach into the one or the other, depending on the need. When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket, and, there, find the words: "For my sake was the world created."

"All existence, other than man, can only comprehend itself. But God created human beings, who contain within themselves the higher and lower worlds, so that they can imagine everything in their souls. That is the essence of humanity – that human beings can understand and imagine something other than themselves."

"Keep two truths in your pocket and take them out according to the need of the moment. Let one be ?For my sake the world was created.? And the other: ?I am dust and ashes.?"

"All existence, other than man, can only comprehend itself. But God created human beings, who contain within themselves the higher and lower worlds, so that they can imagine everything in their souls. That is the essence of humanity ? that human beings can understand and imagine something other than themselves."

"If we learn it right, when our time comes to die we are not afraid. It is not unlike the last words of the Hasidic master, Rabbi Simcha Bunam, who, as he lay dying, took his wife's hand and said, "Why are you crying? My whole life was only that I might learn how to die.""