Maimonides
Quotes
A medieval philosopher, physician, and legal scholar whose writings sought to harmonize religious tradition with reason and philosophy. His most influential work explores profound questions about God, ethics, and the nature of existence. He profoundly impacted both Jewish thought and broader philosophical traditions by advocating rational inquiry alongside religious devotion.
Maimonides
Quotes
A medieval philosopher, physician, and legal scholar whose writings sought to harmonize religious tradition with reason and philosophy. His most influential work explores profound questions about God, ethics, and the nature of existence. He profoundly impacted both Jewish thought and broader philosophical traditions by advocating rational inquiry alongside religious devotion.
All attributes ascribed to God are attributes of His acts, and do not imply that God has any qualities.
Silence is the maturation of wisdom.
Every man whose character traits all lie in the mean is called a wise man.
The great sickness and the grievous evil consist in this: that all the things that man finds written in books, he presumes to think of as true-and all the more so if the books are old.
Let nothing which can be treated by diet be treated by other means.
You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.
It is of great advantage that man should know his station, and not imagine that the whole universe exists only for him.
The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.
For it is said, "You shall strengthen the stranger and the dweller in your midst and live with him," that is to say, strengthen him until he needs no longer fall upon the mercy of the community or be in need.
The prophet Isaiah ... points out what will be the cause of this change; for he says that hatred, quarrel, and fighting will come to an end, because men will have a true knowledge of God. "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters which cover the sea" (Isa. xi. ver. 9) Note it.
It is man's duty to love and to fear God, even without hope of reward or fear of punishment.
In the realm of Nature there is nothing purposeless, trivial, or unnecessary.
Actions are divided as regards their object into four classes; they are either purposeless, unimportant, vain, or good.
Consequently he who wishes to attain to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics.
Man's obsession to add to his wealth and honor is the chief source of his misery.
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.
He, however, who begins with Metaphysics, will not only become confused in matters of religion, but will fall into complete infidelity.
In the beginning we must simplify the subject, thus unavoidably falsifying it, and later we must sophisticate away the falsely simple beginning.
Eliphas never abandoned his belief that the fate of man is the result of justice, that we do not know all our shortcomings for which we are punished, nor the way how we incur the punishment through them.
It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision.
Lose with truth and right rather than gain with falsehood and wrong.
The first kind of evil is that which is caused to man by the circumstance that he is subject to genesis and destruction, or that he possesses a body.
The whole object of the Prophets and the Sages was to declare that a limit is set to human reason where it must halt.
