13 Quotes by Ahad Ha'am

More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.

What is national freedom if not a people’s inner freedom to cultivate its abilities along the beaten path of its history?

More than Israel has kept the Sabbath, the Sabbath has kept Israel.

We are used to thinking of the Arabs as primitive men of the desert, as a donkey-like nation that neither sees nor understands what is going around it. But this is a GREAT ERROR. The Arab, like all sons of Sham, has sharp and crafty mind . . . Should time come when life of our people in Palestine imposes to a smaller or greater extent on the natives, they WILL NOT easily step aside.

If this be the Messiah, then I do not wish to see his coming

[But if things continue the way they are] ...the society that I envision, if my dream is not just a false notion, this society will have to begin to create itself in the midst of fuss, noisiness and panic, and will have to face the prospects of both internal and external war.

The less their ability, the more their conceit.

This Moses, I say, this man of old time, whose existence and character you are trying to elucidate, matters to nobody but scholars like you.

We can't ignore the fact that ahead of us is a great war and this war is going to need significant preparation.