Avot Quotes & Sayings

41 Mishnah Avot 3.23. 4 The compilation of the Talmud Rabbi Tarfon said, The day is short and there is much work, the workman are lazy but the wages are high, and the master of the house is pressing.1 The academies in Babylon — Harry Freedman

A simple word of greeting, an offer of a cup of coffee on me, a smile and a hug will all go a long way toward reconciliation. A listening ear can open a wandering heart to the thought that God still loves them, and there just might be a place still set for them at their Father's table. — Katherine J. Walden

Shimon ben Azai said: Do not despise any person, and do not dismiss any thing, for there is no one who does not have his hour, and no thing that does not have its place. Pirkei Avot 4:3 — Dave Mason

Compassion is the feeling of sympathy which the pain of one being awakens in another; and the higher and more human the beings are, the more keenly attuned they are to re-echo the note of suffering, which, like a voice from heaven, penetrates the heart, bringing all creatures a proof of their kinship in the universal God. And as for man, whose function it is to show respect and love for God's universe and all its creatures, his heart has been created so tender that it feels with the whole organic world ... mourning even for fading flowers; so that, if nothing else, the very nature of his heart must teach him that he is required above everything to fe the brother of all beings, and to recognize the claim of all beings to his love and his beneficence.
Horeb, Chapter 17, Verse 125 — Pirkei Avot

I get the feeling a lot of politicians are there to help themselves financially, first and foremost. — Gordon Strachan

Nothing reaches inside you and grabs you by the guts the way fear does. — John Marsden

As God is merciful, so you also be merciful. As he loves and cares for all His creatures and His children and are related to Him, because He is their Father, so you also love all His creatures as your brethren. Let their joys be your joys, and their sorrows yours. Love them and with every power which God gives you, work for their welfare and benefit, because they are the children of your God, because they are your brothers and sisters. — Pirkei Avot

If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I? If not now, when? — Pirkei Avot

A high character might be produced, I suppose, by continued prosperity, but it has very seldom been the case. Adversity, however it may appear to be our foe, is our true friend; and, after a little acquaintance with it, we receive it as a precious thing - the prophecy of a coming joy. It should be no ambition of ours to traverse a path without a thorn or stone. — Charles Spurgeon

Souls know no gender, they only know love, nothing but love... — Joshua Ryan Donley

Norman Rockwell spent his career painting pictures that helped people understand their own feelings ... pictures that enriched their own experiences and celebrated their own lives. But the art establishment branded him an 'illustrator', a sentimental one at that. Real artists, they said were doing art for art's sake, not for the sake of the bourgeois public. Real artists were putting swiggles, smears or daubs of paint on the canvas. They were doing 'innovative' and 'creative' work. If they were hideous and grotesque; we know that's what life really is! — Bill Bonner

I choose to be a happy person. I choose not to be a bitter person — Britney Spears

The missionaries go forth to Christianize the savages - as if the savages weren't dangerous enough already. — Edward Abbey

When you got right down to it, my dick was the one organ that hadn't presented itself to my consciousness through pain, — Michel Houellebecq

Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world. Their continued presence in the Garden was contingent on the keeping of only a few commandments, not 613 commandments. Under the best conditions this world has ever seen, Adam and Eve break one of the three laws and die in exile. It is not at all clear how the telling of the story of Adam and Eve's failure to keep only a few commandments in a perfect world is supposed to encourage Israel to keep 613 commandments in a fallen world. Actually, it offers no encouragement, at all. And if we take the principle of ma'asei avot' siman l'banim seriously, Adam's story never was intended to warn Israel from following in Adam's footsteps (i.e., a warning to keep the Law). Rather, Adam's story was intended to be a prophecy that Israel would follow in Adam's footsteps. "Israel, you will be just like Adam. — Seth D. Postell