Israel Zangwill Quotes & Sayings

Take from me the hope that I can change the future and you will send me mad. — Israel Zangwill

A man likes his wife to be just clever enough to appreciate his cleverness, and just stupid enough to admire it. — Israel Zangwill

Let us start a new religion with one commandment, Enjoy thyself. — Israel Zangwill

America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! — Israel Zangwill

There are three reasons why men of genius have long hair. One is, that they forget it is growing. The second is, that they like it. The third is, that it comes cheaper; they wear it long for the same reason they wear their hats long. — Israel Zangwill

No Jew was ever fool enough to turn Christian unless he was a clever man. — Israel Zangwill

[T]he German censorship forbade or mutilated my every book, which was like sticking pins into my soul ... — Israel Zangwill

The way Bernard Shaw believes in himself is very refreshing in these atheistic days when so many people believe in no God at all. — Israel Zangwill

New York is the great stone desert. — Israel Zangwill

You, the Spirit of the Settlement! ... Not understand that America is God's crucible, the great melting-pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here, you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries ... — Israel Zangwill

It takes two men to make one brother. — Israel Zangwill

Scratch the Christian and you find the pagan - spoiled. — Israel Zangwill

The Land of Israel needs a People and the People of Israel needs a Land. — Israel Zangwill

Selfishness is the only real atheism; unselfishness the only real religion. — Israel Zangwill

There never was such an age in which so many people were able to write badly. — Israel Zangwill

I hate French poetry. What measured glitter! — Israel Zangwill

O God ... make me a child again, even before I die; give me back the simple faith, the clear vision of the child that holds its father's hand. — Israel Zangwill

The only true love is love at first sight; second sight dispels it. — Israel Zangwill

Everything changes but change. — Israel Zangwill

Until mankind heeds the message on the Hebrew trumpet blown, and the faith of the whole world's people is the faith that is our own. — Israel Zangwill

No, the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell you - he will be the fusion of all races, perhaps the coming superman. — Israel Zangwill

Artistic truth is for me literally the highest truth: art may seize the essence of persons and movements no less truly, and certainly far more vitally, than a scientific generalization unifies a chaos of phenomena. Time and Space are only the conditions through which spiritual facts struggle. Hence I have here and there permitted myself liberties with these categories. — Israel Zangwill

Every dogma has its day, but ideals are eternal. — Israel Zangwill

Editors are constantly on the watch to discover new talents in old names. — Israel Zangwill

The wonderful poems interpreting with equal magic the romance of strange lands and times, or the modern soul, naked and unashamed, as if clothed in its own complexity; the humorous-tragic questionings of the universe; the delicious travel-pictures and fantasies; the lucid criticisms of art, and politics, and philosophy, informed with malicious wisdom, shimmering with poetry and wit. — Israel Zangwill

The cold cut like a many bladed knife — Israel Zangwill

In these electric times the criminal receives a cosmopolitan reputation. It is a privilege he shares with few other artists. — Israel Zangwill

As soon as you tolerate something, it becomes bearable, and before long it will become common. — Israel Zangwill

The Past: Our cradle, not our prison; there is danger as well as appeal in its glamour. The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition. — Israel Zangwill

What clinical lectures I will give in heaven, demonstrating the ignorance of doctors! — Israel Zangwill

The law of dislike for the unlike will always prevail. And whereas the unlike is normally situated at a safe distance, the Jews bring the unlike into the heart of every milieu, and must there defend a frontier line as large as the world. — Israel Zangwill

In how many lives does love really play a dominant part? The average taxpayer is no more capable of a 'grand passion' than of a grand opera. — Israel Zangwill

In the din and tumult of the age, the still small voice of Jerusalem remains our only music. — Israel Zangwill

Dead men hear no tales; posthumous fame is an Irish bull. — Israel Zangwill