Yiddish Quotes

• I heard Yiddish when my father's family came to the house, which was as seldom as my mother could arrange it.

  Joseph H. Greenberg

  Mother, Father, House

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• I am determined to give the Yiddish language a fighting chance to survive.

  Theodore Bikel

  Fighting, Giving, Determined

  53 Copy quote

• My father who in this case was an obsessive life-long storyteller, and by a very peculiar trick of my father's. My father would tell a very, very long story, and the punch line would be in Yiddish.

  Stephen Greenblatt

  Father, Long, Would Be

  Interview with Michael Silverblatt, stephengreenblatt.com. March 16, 2013.

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• Well, I like how people talk. I like language. You know, Linda Richman spoke in Yiddish.

  Mike Myers

  People, Language, Spokes

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• On a crowded bus in Israel, a mother was speaking to her son in Yiddish. An Israeli woman reprimanded her. "You should be speaking Hebrew. Why are you talking to him in Yiddish?" The mother answered, "I don't want he should forget he's a Jew."

  Kirk Douglas

  Funny, Mother, Humor

  25 Copy quote

• Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bear the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are the undried, uncongealed Jewish tears.

  I. L. Peretz

  Father, Jewels, Land

  "Manginot HaZman" by I. L. Peretz, 1886.

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• 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

  Appreciation, Expression, Joy

  Isaac Bashevis Singer's Nobel Lecture, www.nobelprize.org. December 8, 1978.

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• To me the Yiddish language and the conduct of those who spoke it are identical.

  Isaac Bashevis Singer

  Language, Spokes, Identical

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Joseph C. Landis (1986). “Aspects of I.B. Singer”

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• A wise man hears one word and understands two.

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Wise, Men, Two

  60 Copy quote

• 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

  Wise, Gratitude, Humble

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Joseph C. Landis (1986). “Aspects of I.B. Singer”

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• Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Education, Learning

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• If you want your dreams to come true, don't oversleep.

  Nicky Gumbel

  Dream, Want, Ifs

  Twitter post from Jan 17, 2013

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• 

  Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  Albert Einstein's letter to his son Eduard (February 5, 1930), as quoted in Walter Isaacson "Einstein: His Life and Universe" (p. 367), 2007.

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• He who cannot endure the bad will not live to see the good.

  Jennifer Donnelly

  Endure, Jew

  Jennifer Donnelly (2014). “The Winter Rose”, p.271, Bloomsbury Publishing

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• Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.

  Albert Einstein

  Inspirational, Funny, Wise

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• Pessimism is a luxury that a Jew can never allow himself.

  Golda Meir

  Luxury, Pessimism, Judaism

  The Observer, December 29, 1974.

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• if you don't want to get old, don't mellow.

  Linda Ellerbee

  Age, Want, Mellow

  Linda Ellerbee (1993). “Move On”

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• When one must, one can.

  Charlotte Whitton

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• True poverty does not come from God.

  Lyndon B. Johnson

  Doe, Poverty

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• If they want to see me, here I am. If they want to see my clothes, open my closet and show them my suits.

  Albert Einstein

  Fashion, Here I Am, Clothes

  7 Copy quote

• Yiddish is the voice of exile, the tongue of ghettos, but I'll shed a tear when it joins ancient Greek and dead Latin. For gossip and insult, you can't beat Yiddish.

  Linda Barnes

  Latin, Ghetto, Insults You

  Linda Barnes (2015). “Cold Case”, p.9, Open Road Media

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• 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, Children, Father

  Isaac Bashevis Singer, Joseph C. Landis (1986). “Aspects of I.B. Singer”

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• There's an expression in Yiddish, which is "der gelernte naar" - a "learned fool." You can know a great deal, you can have a Ph.D., and you can still be a total idiot.

  Mark Helprin

  Expression, Fool, Idiot

  Source: americasfuture.org

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• Yiddish for gall, nerve, arrogance-whatever

  Howard Fast

  Arrogance, Nerves

  Howard Fast (1977). “The Immigrants”, Dell Publishing Company

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• I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English, Spanish, Yiddish, Swahili, any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.

  Carlos Santana

  Long, Language, Speak

  "Carlos Santana: 'My daughter beat me at Guitar Hero'" by Peter Robinson, www.theguardian.com. September 19, 2012.

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