Sholom Aleichem Quotes

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.

No matter how bad things get, you got to go on living, even if it kills you.

You see how it is, my dear friends. There's no pleasing everyone. It's hopeless to even try, and the more you play the peacemaker, the less peaceful things become.

One cannot live on potatoes alone. It is said that one wants bread with potatoes. And when there's no bread, a Jew takes his stick, and goes through the village in search of business.

If you listen carefully, you get to hear everything you didn't want to hear in the first place.

Gossip is nature's telephone.

The rich swell up with pride, the poor from hunger.

If somebody tells you you have ears like a donkey, pay no attention. But if two people tell you, buy yourself a saddle.

Without love our life is ... a ship without a rudder ... like a body without a soul.

You can take a Jew out of a shtetl, but you cannot take a shtetl out of a Jew.

I never turn down a drink. Among friends it’s always appropriate. A man is only a man as they say, but brandy is still brandy. You’ll find that in the Talmud too.

A wise word is not a substitute for a piece of herring.

I will never permit myself to give in to American taste and lower the standards of art.

A real pleasure is a pleasure that one enjoys by one's self, without a companion, and without a single argument.

Barking dogs don't bite, but they themselves don't know it.

Love is a taste of paradise.

A cantor, when he starts singing, it's like rain - once it starts, it's hard to stop.

A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction.

They say that children become men, and men become children. Many generations have grown up, become men, and gone hence.

A kind word is no substitute for a piece of herring or a bag of oats.

When have you ever heard of a cantor or any artist turning anyone down when he is strongly urged to perform?

To make people laugh was almost a sickness with me.

Here lies a plain and simple Jew who wrote in plain and simple prose.

Each Jew must either give or take tzedakah [charity] for Passover.

Ah, how many luxuries has the good God prepared for his Jewish children.

No one knows whom the shoe pinches - no one.

When you die, others who think they know you, will concoct things about you... Better pick up a pen and write it yourself, for you know yourself best.