Torah Quotes

Where there is Torah it sustains the world. (Ovadia Yosef)
There was a tsunami and there are terrible natural disasters, all of this because of too little Torah study. View quote
Ovadia Yosef
It is easy for a rabbi to establish prohibitions, but a rabbi's real strength is to teach Torah and rule on law with an emphasis on what is permitted. View quote
Ovadia Yosef
Both of my parents would say they were atheists, so where I inherited my connection to God I don't know. But it's natural. No Bible, no Torah, just the love religion. View quote
Lisa Bonet
Its no coincidence that the word holiday suggests a holy day, or that the longest book in the Torah concerns the Sabbath. If you wish to advance in any sphere, the best way is to take a retreat. View quote
Pico Iyer
The Torah sage ... does not encroach upon another's occupation, nor does he ever cause someone discomfort. The rule is that he should be among the pursued and not the pursuers, among those who accept humiliation but not among those who humiliate others. View quote
Maimonides
In my larger work, the Mishnah Torah, I have contented myself with briefly stating the principles of our faith and its fundamental truths, together with such hints as approach a clear exposition. In this work, however, I address those who have studied philosophy and have acquired sound knowledge, and who while firm in religious matters are perplexed and bewildered on account of the ambiguous and figurative expressions employed in the holy writings. View quote
Maimonides
A man shall not be full of laughter and mockery, nor sad and mournful, but joyful. ... His desire shall not be so great that he rushes for wealth, nor shall he be lazy and refrain from working. But he shall live in contentment, have a modest occupation, and be occupied mainly with the Torah. View quote
Maimonides
Torah study is an intellectual pursuit, and honoring this ultimate value transfers to other pursuits as well, Jewish homes are full of books while other homes may or may not be. Jewish homes have overflowing bookshelves. Throughout the generations we have given great honor to this intellectual pursuit...Torah study makes the nation and its people of the finest and highest quality. View quote
Robert Aumann
This noble pledge has endured trying hours in the United Nations history, and it still guides our work today. Yet the ideals of the charter are now facing a challenge as serious as any since the U. N.'s founding, a global movement of violent extremists. By deliberately murdering the innocent to advance their aims, these extremists defy the fundamental principles of international order. They show contempt for all who respect life and value human dignity. They reject the words of the Bible, the Koran, the Torah, or any standard of conscience or morality. They imperil the values of justice and human rights that gave birth to the United Nations, values that have fueled an unprecedented expansion of freedom across the world. View quote
George W. Bush
[E]ven if a person excels in Torah and good deeds more than all his contemporaries, if he has not learned the secrets of Torah and the wisdom of truth, he must reincarnate in the world (...) Now the matter is clarified-the whole part of the revealed Torah is but a preparation to become worthy and merit attaining the concealed part. It is the concealed part that is very wholeness and the purpose for which man is created. (Yehuda Ashlag)
"The whole Torah is the names of the Creator." All the stories and the laws and the sentences, all are His Holy Names. View quote
Yehuda Ashlag
[T]he whole purpose of the Torah is to correct the sin of the Tree of Knowledge, which induced the confusion of the conduct of the sustenance of reality. View quote
Yehuda Ashlag
Because there is no difference or disparity of form between them (...) "The Torah and the Creator and Israel are one." View quote
Yehuda Ashlag
There is the illusion of the world and the reality of the Torah. View quote
Meir Kahane
The observant Jew has his own sense of values. Torah Judaism is his blueprint for this life, his target for existence. View quote
Meir Kahane
'Love your fellow as yourself'- Rabbi Akiva says: This is the great principal of the Torah. View quote
Akiba ben Joseph
(To his 24,000 pairs of students) My (Torah knowledge) and yours are hers. View quote
Akiba ben Joseph
That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation. Go and study it. View quote
Hillel the Elder
One who increases flesh, increases worms; one who increases possessions, increases worry; one who increases wives, increases witchcraft; one who increases maidservants, increases promiscuity; one who increases man-servants, increases thievery; one who increases Torah, increases life; one who increases study, increases wisdom; one who increases counsel, increases understanding; one who increases charity, increases peace. View quote
Hillel the Elder
The free movement of the moral impulse to establish justice for animals generally and the claim of their rights from mankind are hidden in a natural psychic sensibility in the deeper layers of the Torah. In the ancient value system of humanity ... the moral sense had risen to a point of demanding justice for animals. ... Just as the democratic aspiration will reach outward through the general intellectual and moral perfection ... so will the hidden yearning to act justly towards animals emerge at the proper time. What prepares the ground for this state is the commandments, those intended specifically for this area of concern. There is indeed a hidden reprimand between the lines of the Torah in the sanction to eat meat. (Abraham Isaac Kook)
The Mishnah is the big basic and the iron pillar of the whole Torah. View quote
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
But science is permitted because this wisdom is like a ladder to climb to the Torah wisdom. View quote
Judah Loew ben Bezalel
Specifically, in these days when brutal and murderous terrorism seeks to drive us apart, we must reiterate to ourselves – here, in the Knesset, in schools, in academia and in the halls of Torah study – that to be Jewish is democratic and democracy is Jewish. Only in this way can we know that brutal terrorism will not break us physically, or our spirit. View quote
Reuven Rivlin
They don't observe the Sabbath, they don't observe the Torah, they don't pray, they don't put on phylacteries every day. Is it any wonder that they're killed? It's no wonder. May the Almighty have mercy on them and bring them back to religion. View quote
Ovadia Yosef