Maimonides Quotes

We each decide whether to make ourselves learned or ignorant, compassionate or cruel, generous or miserly. No one forces us. No one decides for us, no one drags us along one path or the other. We are responsible for what we are.

Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.

I will destroy my enemies by converting them to friends.

Teach thy tongue to say 'I do not know,' and thou shalt progress.

Every man should view himself as equally balanced: half good and half evil. Likewise, he should see the entire world as half good and half evil.... With a single good deed he will tip the scales for himself, and for the entire world, to the side of good.

Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

There are eight levels of charity.... The highest is when you strengthen a man's hand until he need no longer be dependent upon others.

You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.

Let nothing which can be treated by diet be treated by other means.

Man's obsession to add to his wealth and honor is the chief source of his misery.

Silence is the maturation of wisdom.

The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it

There is no difference between the pain of humans and the pain of other living beings, since the love and tenderness of the mother for the young are not produced by reasoning, but by feeling, and this faculty exists not only in humans but in most living beings.

Lose with truth and right rather than gain with falsehood and wrong.

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.

Every ignoramus imagines that all that exists, exists with a view to his individual sake; it is as if there were nothing that exists except him. And if something happens to him that is contrary to what he wishes, he makes the trenchant judgement that all that exists is an evil.

In finances, be strict with yourself, generous with others.

There are eight rungs in charity. The highest is when you help a man to help himself.

A truth does not become greater by repetition.

A wise man is a greater asset to a nation than a king.

Nobody is ever impoverished through the giving of charity.

God who preceded all existence is a refuge.

Anticipate charity by preventing poverty; assist the reduced fellow man, either by a considerable gift or a sum of money or by teaching him a trade or by putting him in the way of business so that he may earn an honest livelihood and not be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity. This is the highest step and summit of charity's golden ladder.

What is lofty can be said in any language. What is mean should be said in none.