Rabbi Hillel Quotes – Lessons from a Wise Jewish Scholar
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I?
Do not judge your fellow until you are in his place.
Where there is no human being, strive to be a human being.
Say not, ‘When I have leisure I will study,’ because perhaps you will never have leisure.
In a place where there are no men, strive to be a man.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
The more possessions, the more worry. The more wives, the more witchcraft.
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.
If you can dream it, you can achieve it.
Believe you can and you’re halfway there.
The only way to do great work is to love what you do.
Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life.
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.
In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.
To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.
The only way to deal with temptation is to yield to it.
I am not young enough to know everything.
To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
A gentleman is one who never hurts anyone’s feelings unintentionally.
Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing worth knowing can be taught.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
A man’s face is his autobiography. A woman’s face is her work of fiction.
Life is too important to be taken seriously.
I can resist anything except temptation.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.
The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.
Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is by far the best ending for one.
There is no sin except stupidity.
Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.
The charm of history and its enigmatic lesson consist in the fact that, from age to age, nothing changes and yet everything is completely different.
We teach people how to remember, we never tell them how to grow.
The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.
I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
The aim of life is self-development. To realize one’s nature perfectly – that is what each of us is here for.