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If Moses had been paid newspaper rates for the Ten Commandments, he might have written the Two Thousand Commandments.

Isaac Bashevis Singer

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Isaac Bashevis Singer
Age: 87 †
Born: 1904
Born: July 14
Died: 1991
Died: July 24
Author
Autobiographer
Esperantist
Journalist
Novelist
Prosaist
Screenwriter
Translator
Writer
Isaac Bashevis-Singer
Yitsḥoḳ Basheṿis
Yitsḥaḳ Basheṿis-Zinger
Yitsḥaḳ Basheṿis- Zinger
I. B. Singer
Itzhak Bashevis Singer
Yitsḥoḳ Bashevis-Zinger
Isaac Bashevis
Yitsḥaḳ Basheṿis
Yitsḥoḳ Bashevis- Zinger
Ten
Rate
Paid
Thousand
Rates
Written
Moses
Literature
Newspaper
Two
Commandments
Might
Newspapers

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There must be a way for man to attain all possible pleasures, all the powers and knowledge that nature can grant him, and still serve God--a God who speaks in deeds, not in words, and whose vocabulary is the Cosmos.
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When a day passes, it is no longer there. What remains of it? Nothing more than a story. If stories weren't told or books weren't written, man would live like the beasts, only for the day.
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It seems that the analysis of character is the highest human entertainment. And literature does it, unlike gossip, without mentioning names.
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They still believe in God, the family, angels, witches, goblins, logic, clarity, punctuation, and other obsolete stuff.
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Various philosophers and religious leaders tried to convince their disciples and followers that animals are nothing more than machines without a soul, without feelings. However, anyone who has ever lived with an animal-be it a dog, a bird, or even a mouse-knows that this theory is a brazen lie, invented to justify cruelty.
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But my gloom did not lessen. I knew that I'd had a bad dream, and I stood in the dark trying to recollect it. The second I closed my eyes, I was with the dead. They did things words cannot express. They spoke madness. (Hanka)
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Children read books, not reviews. They don't give a hoot about critics.
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Men want all women to lie down as whores and get up as virgins.
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As much as I can give of myself I give of myself. There's no reason why not. And when I have to hide something, I let the character speak.
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I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.
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If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet... [at least for your own situation. Blind optimism is just as foolish. The solution is a rigorously balanced, rational outlook.]
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In relation to them (animals), all people are Nazis for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.
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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
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Heaven and earth conspire that everything which has been, be rooted and reduced to dust. Only the dreamers, who dream while awake, call back the shadows of the past and braid nets from the unspun thread.
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If there would come a voice from God saying, 'I'm against vegetarianism!' I would say, 'Well, I am for it!' This is how strongly I feel in this regard.
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When I was a little boy, they called me a liar, but now that I am grown up, they call me a writer.
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The more you see what other people do, the more you learn about yourself.
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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
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When a human kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice. Man prays for mercy, but is unwilling to extend it to others. Why should man then expect mercy from God? It's unfair to expect something that you are not willing to give.
Isaac Bashevis Singer
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As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.
Isaac Bashevis Singer