"Then up he rose, and forth they went Away from battleground, fortress, tent, Mountain, wilderness, field and farm, Death and the General, arm in arm. Death and General Putnam."

"I breathed a song into the air; That little song of beauty rare Is flying still, for all I know, Around the world by Radio."

"You are the weakest and the least, and the last to be redeemed.... You will be freed, when man will rise above the earthly, when human worms will turn into human eagles."

"the triumvirate of Yiddish masters, S. Y. Abramovitch, Sholem Aleichem, and I. L. Peretz"

"Throughout all of Yiddish literature, beginning with the classical writers...there is an undercurrent of sympathy for the Jewish woman, as well as guilt about her double enslavement, both as woman and as Jew...Itzkhok Leybush Peretz was most aware of the Jewish woman's double bind and depicted it without embellishment. I would say that he was the first thoroughgoing feminist in the literature, as can be seen in his two strongest stories from Folkstimlekhe Geshikhtn (Folkloric Tales)."

"Modern Yiddish literature attained its maturity with the work of three classical masters: Mendele Moykher Sforim, Sholem Aleichem, and I. L. Peretz. These three authors were the literary forebears whom subsequent generations of Yiddish writers both emulated and rebelled against."

"From Sholem Aleichem to Peretz and beyond, canonical Yiddish literature does not mince words when it comes to identifying the tormentors of Jews as Christians."

"Everyone knows, for example, about Yitskhok Leyb Peretz’s house in Warsaw, frequently visited by authors. He acted as a father to them. How many Yiddish writers would indeed never have become Yiddish writers if not for the help and encouragement of Yitskhok Leyb Peretz!"

"In modern Yiddish writing, the moral, spiritual, and emotional capital of generations of Jewish women was utilized by male and female writers alike. The founding father of this literature, Yitskhok Leybush Peretz, championed the liberation of Jewish women in his stories, poems, and plays, as did his protégés Sholem Asch, Avrom Reisen, and Yoysef Opatoshu, among others."

"Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bear the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are the undried, uncongealed Jewish tears."

"I am a rainworm, buried deep Among the oozing, slimy things, Yet of an eagle's nest I dream, And eagle's wings."

"If the husband sits on a chair in the Garden of Eden, his wife is his footstool."

"In this world it is very dangerous to be weak."

"Man has been likened to an earthen pot.... You have but to tap the pot with your finger. If it rings back full and true, all is well; there is your perfect pot. And if not—man, alas, has been likened to a broken potsherd."

"The voice is on the borderline between the physical and the spiritual."

"Nobody ever stubs his toe against a mountain. It's the little temptations that bring a man down."

"Time is change, transformation, evolution. Time is eternal sprouting, blossoming, the eternal tomorrow."

"Who tells the truth needs no fancy phrases."

"A stranger's rose is but a thorn."

"Don't look up to heaven, for what will you see in the sky, except stars, luminous but cold, wholly insensitive to pity?"

"Rather a stone, but to be alone!"

"Prosperity may be found in small as in big business."

"It is not only individuals—peoples too cannot live merely for themselves. The whole world must be redeemed."

"We are like fish In this vast sea. And Satan fishes For you and me."

"Jews are likened to sand: tiny grains, dry and scattered, each separate from the other."

"The song that from the heart would spring Is dead for want of echoing."

"I fear you. As victors, you may become the bureaucracy: doling out to each his bit as in a poorhouse, assigning to each his task as in a prison. And you will exterminate the creator of new worlds,—the free human will, and stop up the purest well of human happiness—the power of the one to face thousands, to stand up to peoples and generations."

"Many refined people will not kill a fly, but eat an ox."

"With the same bricks one may erect... a palace or a prison.... The same letters are used in Holy Writ and heretical works."

"[About loyalty to Judaism] Don't assume, Jewish intellectuals, that you are doing your duty by working... for so-called Humanity.... You are lighting a fire beneath the open sky, while your own family in your own house is freezing."

"He who provides life provides also a living."

"One God, one Law, one people, and one land."

"In the hands of the Jew, the reddest of all flags has been placed forcibly, and he has been told: "Go, go on and on, with all the liberators, with all fighters for a better tomorrow, with all destroyers of Sodoms. But never may you rest with them.... Pay everywhere the bloodiest costs of liberation, but be unnamed in all emancipation proclamations, or be rarely and scarcely mentioned."… The people cursed and blessed to be the last of the redeemed, to be eternally bleeding, the highest soaring expression of the divine in life."

"[About Jews] By nature we are like all other human beings, yet our people is unlike others, because our life is different, our history is different, our teacher is the Exile."

"[About Jews] Among other nations, the vital problems are: a good crop, extension of the boundaries, strong armies, colonies; among us, if we wish to be true to ourselves, the vital questions are: conscience, freedom, culture, ethics."

"[About Jews] Sheer egotism compels us to the purest love of mankind as a whole.... Our hearts are like a sponge, receptive to all the newest humanitarian ideas; and our sympathy goes out to all the unfortunate, all the oppressed."

"We are more than a people.... We are of a pure blood."

"A people's memory is history; and as a man without a memory, so a people without a history cannot grow wiser, better."

"The Hebrew language... is the only glue which holds together our scattered bones. It also holds together the rings in the chain of time.... It binds us to those who built pyramids, to those who shed their blood on the ramparts of Jerusalem, and to those who, at the burning stakes, cried Shema Yisrael!"

"Not all Hasidim are hasidim."

"Little houses in a row, Down a quiet lane; Neither doors nor windows know, Peace and darkness reign. Though you cannot pay the rent, You will dwell there with the best. Where the weary, broken, spent, Find eternal rest!"

"Human lips are now forbidden to utter His name, for being the only God, He needs no name."

"According to the generation is the music thereof."

"The soul is imprisoned in the body, and the Lord... built two windows in the wall of the prison... Unfortunately, the windows have curtains—eyelids; and a man whose soul is impure, feeling himself scrutinized, lets down the curtains and conceals the soul."

"A letter depends on how you read it, a melody on how you sing it."

"We become more united in exile than in Palestine."

"To be of the eternal, you must be of the earth."

"The worst dog gets the best bone."

"[About the diaspora] Canaan is too small for God's children. The Land of Israel will spread through all lands!"