It is written, better to be a fool all your days than for one hour to be evil. You are not a fool. They are the fools. For he who causes his neighbor to feel shame loses Paradise himself. Isaac Bashevis Singer More Quotes by Isaac Bashevis Singer More Quotes From Isaac Bashevis Singer No matter how much you know a human being, you don't know him enough. Isaac Bashevis Singer enough matter relationship Of course I believe in free will. Do we have a choice? Isaac Bashevis Singer free-will choices believe One has to trust that God knows how to manage the world. Isaac Bashevis Singer know-how god world While facts never become obsolete or stale, commentaries always do. Isaac Bashevis Singer stale obsolete facts Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge. Isaac Bashevis Singer ocean beach knowledge The storyteller and poet of our time, as in any other time, must be an entertainer of the spirit in the full sense of the word, not just a preacher of social or political ideals. There is no paradise for bored readers and no excuse for tedious literature that does not intrigue the reader, uplift him, give him the joy and the escape that true art always grants. Isaac Bashevis Singer bored uplifting art To me the Yiddish language and the conduct of those who spoke it are identical. Isaac Bashevis Singer yiddish spokes language I believe in God but people are liars. It's those people who say they are appointed by God who I don't believe in. Isaac Bashevis Singer truth liars believe Some of my cronies call me a pessimist and a decadent, but there is always a background of faith behind resignation. Isaac Bashevis Singer cronies pessimist call-me From borrowing one gets poorer and from work one gets richer. Isaac Bashevis Singer get-rich wealth money The waste basket is the writer's best friend. Isaac Bashevis Singer waste writing friendship Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics. Isaac Bashevis Singer writing book children If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet... [at least for your own situation. Blind optimism is just as foolish. The solution is a rigorously balanced, rational outlook.] Isaac Bashevis Singer optimism anticipation chance In our time, when the literature for adults is deteriorating, good books for children are the only hope, the only refuge. Isaac Bashevis Singer adults book children I know as a writer how valuable a tool is the wastebasket. Perhaps God throws away many experiments before He finds the right expression. Perhaps we are the discards - or we could be the part He keeps. This mystery is what keeps us all going, to see what happens in the next chapter. Isaac Bashevis Singer next-chapter tools expression There is a quiet humor in Yiddish and a gratitude for every day of life, every crumb of success, each encounter of love... In a figurative way, Yiddish is the wise and humble language of us all, the idiom of a frightened and hopeful humanity. Isaac Bashevis Singer gratitude humble wise In God's mill even chaff becomes flour. Isaac Bashevis Singer flour mills god I have heard from my father and mother all the answers that faith in God could offer to those who doubt and search for the truth. In our home and in many other homes the eternal questions were more actual than the latest news in the Yiddish newspaper. In spite of all the disenchantments and all my skepticism I believe that the nations can learn much from those Jews, their way of thinking, their way of bringing up children, their finding happiness where others see nothing but misery and humiliation. Isaac Bashevis Singer mother father children The truth is that what the great religions preached, the Yiddish-speaking people of the ghettos practiced day in and day out. They were the people of The Book in the truest sense of the word. They knew of no greater joy than the study of man and human relations, which they called Torah, Talmud, Mussar, Cabala. Isaac Bashevis Singer ghetto men book One can find in the Yiddish tongue and in the Yiddish spirit expressions of pious joy, lust for life, longing for the Messiah, patience and deep appreciation of human individuality. Isaac Bashevis Singer expression joy appreciation
