Tag: Quotables

Illustrative things said by people other than me. Think of them as pieces of congealed wonder and wisdom.

Death steals everything except our stories.”
— Jim Harrison

AMERICA IS A PLACE WHERE Jewish merchants sell Zen love beads to agnostics for Christmas.”
— John Burton Brimer

OKAY MOSES,” SAID GOD. “HERE’S another commandment: Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean, don’t eat meat and milk together?”
“No. Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean we should have separate dishes for meat and dairy?”
“No. Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean we should wait a few hours after eating meat before we eat dairy?”
“Moses,” said God,”do whatever the hell you want.”

Tell me what you know of Torah,” asked the greybeard rabbi.
“I only know a little,” responded the young student.
The rabbi smiled. “That’s all anyone knows of Torah.”

Leadership is not about the next election, it’s about the next generation.”
— Anon.

Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’”
― Isaac Asimov

All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well-supported in logic and argument than others.”
~ Douglas Adams

The story is told of two prisoners condemned to death being held for 6 months in the dungeon of a castle. On the day of execution, the lieutenant leads them down the corridor and up the stairs level by level until they come to the courtyard exit. They are taken to the wall, blindfolded, given their last cigarette and their hands are tied behind their backs. The lieutenant walks back to his firing squad and says, “Ready, aim …” and one prisoner turns to the other prisoner and says, “Now here’s my plan!”

–Rabbi Kalman Packouz

The Torah can be taken, among other things, as a ‘polyphonic’ text, or a loose anthology of competing claims regarding the legal stipulations of the covenant. The edited Torah, following this approach, was not meant to be read as a practical and coherent handbook on how to carry out the law, but as a collage of competing understandings of the requirements of the covenant.”

— Rabbi David Frankel

“When young people ask me about death, I tell them: ‘We die a little every day. When you get to be my age, you get used to it.'”
— Near-centenarian Richard Meyers