literary-works

"My light, the Torah, says God to man, is in thy hand; but thy light, the soul, is in my hand. Take care of my light, so that I may take care of thy light."

"The matron whom we find so often arguing with Rabbi José observed one day to that sage, 'My god is surely greater than yours. When your God appeared to Moses in the bush, Moses merely covered his face, whilst when my god (the serpent) made its appearance he could not stand his ground at all, but had to run away out of fear.' 'Not so, 'returned the Rabbi, 'for in order to be out of the power of your god it sufficed for Moses to step a few paces back, but whither could he have fled from the presence of Him who filleth the earth?'"

"In giving his Torah to Israel, God is like a king who gives his only daughter in marriage, and makes it a condition with her husband that there shall always be a room kept for him in their house. If we wish to have the Torah, we must have God also. This is the meaning of the words 'Make Me a sanctuary that I may dwell therein.'"

"Repentance makes virtues almost of the very vices of the penitent sinner."

"Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, 7 vols. (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1909–1938)"

"David advisedly calls one of his Psalms (Psalm 90) 'A prayer of Moses, the man of God,' and another Psalm (Psalm 102) he names 'A prayer of the afflicted,' to convey to us the truth that the prayer of the greatest and of the most humble of men, that of the richest and that of the poorest, of the slave and of the master, are equal before God."

"Every prophecy, afterwards uttered by various prophets, was handed over on Sinai at the time of the giving of the Decalogue, but was to be kept unproclaimed until each prophet had received the charge of proclaiming his respective prophecy"

"There is no place without God's presence. Even in the bush He was present, and this was the lesson of God's omnipresence that Moses learnt when he was called out of the bush."

"For the purpose of effecting Israel's redemption God did not disdain to appear in a place where there were images of idols or other impurities."

"He who lives by usury in this world shall not live in the world to come."

"Israel was redeemed from Egypt in answer to prayer. Joshua became a conqueror because of his prayer; in the days of the judges help was obtained by prayer; Samuel's help for his people was granted in reply to prayer."

"Samuel Rapaport, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1907)"

"The poor are styled 'God's own.'"

"Prayers should be said in common, master and man mistress and maid, rich and poor together, for all are equal before God."

"He who lifts up his hand in a threatening manner against a fellow-man, though he may not actually strike him, is designated a wicked man."

"Man is the proudest of God's creatures, the eagle is the haughtiest amongst the birds, the ox amongst the cattle, and the lion amongst the beasts of the field. Hence it was the image of these four which Ezekiel saw in his vision on the throne of God."

"In calling his two sons by the names of Gershom and Eliezer, Moses, like Joseph and other righteous men, intended to have the fact of God's help constantly before him. Since his sons would be with him, and he would often address them or call them by name, he would remember his gratitude to God."

"Poverty is man's greatest affliction."

"Moses, before he left Egypt, succeeded in securing for the Israelites the observance of rest on the Sabbath, by pointing out to Pharaoh the necessity – in his own interest – of granting his slaves one day every week freedom from labour, and thereby invigorating them for the renewal of labour after their rest."

"When praying on behalf of Pharaoh to remove the plague of hail from him, Moses went out of the town to do so (Exodus 9:20), because he would not pray in the midst of the idols and abominations that polluted the place and rendered it unfit for prayer to the throne of mercy. He went into the open, pure air of God to pray to God."

"If your hands are stained by dishonesty, your prayers will be polluted and impure, and an offence to Him to whom you direct them. Do not pray at all before you have your hands purified from every dishonest act."

"I am the first and I am the last, and beside Me there is no God' (Isaiah 43:6) I am the first, I have no father; I am the last, I have no brother. Beside Me there is no God; I have no son."

"Gold is one of the things for the non-existence of which man would probably be all the better. It was originally called into existence for the service of the Mishkan and of the Temple."

"God requires but earnest prayer and a penitent heart."

"When God first called Moses, not being then an expert prophet, he was addressed in a voice similar to that of his own father, and he thought that his father had come to him from Egypt. God then told him that it was not his earthly father who called him, but the God of his father. Then, we find, Moses hid his face, which he did not do when first called by his name; not in fact until he heard the words, 'I am the God of thy fathers.'"

"It is prohibited to preach out of manuscript. Sermons are to be delivered without the help of any writing before the preacher."

"And loke þou paye weel þat þou doost owe, And bi oþir richesse sette no greet price, For deeþ wole take boþe hiȝe and lowe, And þan fare-weel al þat þere is."

"Sonne, sette not bi þis worldis weele, For it fariþ but as a cherie faire."

"R. B. Parkinson, The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems 1940–1640 BC (Oxford UP, 1997) pp. 151–165"

"R. O. Faulkner, "The Man Who Was Tired of Life", The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, vol. 42 (1956) pp. 21–40"

"V. A. Tobin, in W. K. Simpson (ed.) The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, and Poetry (Yale UP, 1972) pp. 201–209"

"Death is in my sight today As when a man desires to see home When he has spent many years in captivity."

"To whom can I speak today? I am heavy-laden with trouble Through lack of an intimate friend.To whom can I speak today? The wrong which roams the earth, There is no end to it."

"What my ba said to me: "Now throw complaint on the [wood-pile], you my comrade, my brother! Whether you offer on the brazier, whether you bear down on life, as you say, love me here when you have set aside the West! But when it is wished that you attain the West, that your body joins the earth, I shall alight after you have become weary, and then we shall dwell together!""

"To whom can I speak today? Brothers are evil And the friends of today unlovable."

"H. Goedicke, The Report about the Dispute of a Man with his Ba (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970)"

"M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. 1: The Old and Middle Kingdoms (U of California P, 1975) pp. 163–169"

"J. L. Foster, Echoes of Egyptian Voices: An Anthology of Ancient Egyptian Poetry (Norman: U of Oklahoma P, 1992) pp. 11–18"

"Lo, my name reeks Lo, more than carrion smell On summer days of burning sky. [...] Lo, my name reeks Lo, more than that of a wife About whom lies are told to the husband.Lo, my name reeks Lo, more than that of a sturdy child Who is said to belong to one who rejects him.Lo, my name reeks Lo, more than a king's town That utters sedition behind his back."

"To whom can I speak today? Gentleness has perished And the violent man has come down on everyone."

"(As for) that which my ba had said to me: "Give up the complaints about the stalling of this companion, my brother, while you last upon the flame, in order to be adamant about life!" (Man:) "As you say! Like me here, after you rejected the West. Please, but like also the West, and your limbs join the earth, I shall alight, after you are weary. Therefore, let us make a harbor for the occasion.""

"Titles are but nick-names, and every nickname is a title. The thing is perfectly harmless in itself, but it marks a sort of foppery in the human character, which degrades it. It reduces man into the diminutive of man in things which are great, and the counterfeit of women in things which are little. It talks about its fine blue ribbon like a girl, and shows its new garter like a child. A certain writer, of some antiquity, says: "When I was a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.""

"It will always happen when a thing is originally wrong that amendments do not make it right, and it oftens happens that they do as much mischief one way as good the other..."

"The genuine mind of man, thirsting for its native home, society contemns the gewgaws that separate him from it. Titles are like circles drawn by the magician's wand, to contract the sphere of man's felicity."

"The Parliament, imperfectly and capriciously elected as it is, is nevertheless supposed to hold the national purse in trust for the nation; but in the manner in which an English Parliament is constructed it is like a man being both mortgagor and mortgagee, and in the case of misapplication of trust it is the criminal sitting in judgment upon himself."

"To possess ourselves of a clear idea of what government is, or ought to be, we must trace it to its origin. In doing this we shall easily discover that governments must have arisen either out of the people or over the people. Mr. Burke has made no distinction. He investigates nothing to its source, and therefore he confounds everything; but he has signified his intention of undertaking, at some future opportunity, a comparison between the constitution of England and France. As he thus renders it a subject of controversy by throwing the gauntlet, I take him upon his own ground. It is in high challenges that high truths have the right of appearing; and I accept it with the more readiness because it affords me, at the same time, an opportunity of pursuing the subject with respect to governments arising out of society."

"[W]hy do men continue to practise themselves the absurdities they despise in others?"

"Imagination has given figure and character to centaurs, satyrs, and down to all the fairy tribe; but titles baffle even the powers of fancy, and are a chimerical non-descript."

"Not one glance of compassion, not one commiserating reflexion that I can find throughout his book, has he bestowed on those who lingered out the most wretched of lives, a life without hope in the most miserable of prisons. It is painful to behold a man employing his talents to corrupt himself. Nature has been kinder to Mr. Burke than he is to her. He is not affected by the reality of distress touching his heart, but by the showy resemblance of it striking his imagination. He pities the plumage, but forgets the dying bird. Accustomed to kiss the aristocratical hand that hath purloined him from himself, he degenerates into a composition of art, and the genuine soul of nature forsakes him. His hero or his heroine must be a tragedy-victim expiring in show, and not the real prisoner of misery, sliding into death in the silence of a dungeon."

"Before anything can be reasoned upon to a conclusion, certain facts, principles, or data, to reason from, must be established, admitted, or denied."