Abraham Cahan quotes

Sometimes when I am alone in my beautiful apartments, brooding over these things and nursing my loneliness, I say to myself: "There are cases when success is a tragedy." There are moments when I regret my whole career, when my very success seems to be a mistake. I think that I was born for a life of intellectual interest. I was certainly brought up for one. The day when that accident turned my mind from college to business seems to be the most unfortunate day in my life. I think that I should be much happier as a scientist or writer, perhaps. I should then be in my natural element, and if I were doomed to loneliness I should have comforts to which I am now a stranger. That's the way I feel every time I pass the abandoned old building of the City College. The business world contains plenty of successful men who have no brains. Why, then, should I ascribe my triumph to special ability? (Abraham Cahan)
Above all, you must fight conceit, envy, and every kind of ill-feeling in your heart.
Abraham Cahan
Be modest, humble, simple. Control your anger.
Abraham Cahan
I was a great dreamer of day dreams.
Abraham Cahan
Only the other world has substance and reality; only good deeds and holy learning have tangible worth.
Abraham Cahan
What is this world? A mere curl of smoke for the wind to scatter.
Abraham Cahan
Remember that it is not enough to abstain from lying by word of mouth; for the worst lies are often conveyed by a false look, smile, or act.
Abraham Cahan
If you study the Talmud you please God even more than you do by praying or fasting.
Abraham Cahan
Life is much shorter than I imagined it to be.
Abraham Cahan
God, for example, appealed to me as a beardless man wearing a quilted silk cap; holiness was something burning, forbidding, something connected with fire while a day had the form of an oblong box.
Abraham Cahan
You must never tire fighting Satan. (Abraham Cahan)
The orthodox Jewish faith practically excludes woman from religious life.
Abraham Cahan
If it be true that our people represent a high percentage of mental vigor, the distinction is probably due, in some measure, to the extremely important part which Talmud studies have played in the spiritual life of the race.
Abraham Cahan
What is wealth? A dream of fools.
Abraham Cahan
If a man is tongue-tied, don't laugh at him, but, rather, feel pity for him, as you would for a man with broken legs.
Abraham Cahan
If you feel that you are good, don't be too proud of it.
Abraham Cahan
The dearest days in one's life are those that seem very far and very near at once.
Abraham Cahan