14 Quotes by S.Y. Agnon

Tears won't saturate the dead and weeping will not raise him from his grave, if he has one. We should do for the living what we are unable to do for the dead.

That is what makes us love beautiful things: they have a perennial appeal, and hearing about them a second and third time can be even better than the first. The first time you hear it but not all of it. When you hear it again you savor every detail. Thus, when Avraham David spoke about our Master, the distinguished Av Beit Din, he would go on and on about things we already knew, but both the speaker and the listener felt as if they were only now hearing the real gist of it for the first time.

As night falls the city extricates itself from the work of the day and the stars prepare to come out. These were not the stars I was used to in the skies of my town and in the Land of Israel, but they are stars nevertheless. I'm grateful to them because even in a strange land they console me.

This is in line with what the Yalkut notes: when King David finished composing the Book of Psalms, he boasted to the Holy One, blessed be He, "Master of the Universe! Is there anything in the world that lifts up its voice in song like me?"—upon which a frog appeared before him and said, "Do not be so proud of yourself. I sing more than you do.

But after they had prayed they could not eat anything because the sea water had spoiled their food. The Holy One, blessed be He, salted the Leviathan for the end of days when it will be eaten, and the sea has been left full of salt.

Zealots in the Land of Israel shriek that we ought to do unto Germany as it has done to us-- that, just as Germany has issued a ban on Jewish books, so should we ban all German books, without recognizing or realizing that whoever deprives himself of intellectual discourse jeopardizes his own soul.

All my life I have generally avoided my neighbors. If I happen to encounter one of them I immediately move somewhere else.

He longed for it to be winter. A cold wind would blow, the sea would pound, and he would rise cheerful and fit from a delicious sleep beneath warm blankets. Then would come days in which he would write his great novel. The kettle would boil and hot coffee would froth in his cup. In the garden the citron would flower beneath a brilliant moon, its branches dripping fragrance. The starry sky would sweeten the soft silence and Hemdat would pour the dew of his soul into the sea-blue night.

Zealots in the Land of Israel shriek that we ought to do unto Germany as it has done to us – that, just as Germany has issued a ban on Jewish books, so should we ban all German books, without recognizing or realizing that whoever deprives himself of intellectual discourse jeopardizes his own soul.