Sholom Aleichem Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

Playing nuts is a game like any other, neither better than tops, nor worse than cards. The game is played in various ways. There are 'holes' and 'bank' and 'caps.' But every game finishes up in the same way. One boy loses, another wins. And, as always, he who wins is a clever fellow, a smart fellow, a good fellow.

To go to the synagogue with one's father on the Passover eve - is there in the world a greater pleasure than that? What is it worth to be dressed in new clothes from head to foot, and to show off before one's friends? Then the prayers themselves - the first Festival evening prayer and blessing.

It is an old custom amongst Jewish children, to become war-like on the 'L'ag Beomer.' They arm themselves from head to foot with wooden swords, pop-guns and bows and arrows. They take food with them, and go off to wage war.

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

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

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

Our town, Kasrilevke - that's where I'm from, you know - is a small town, and a poor one. There is no thievery there. No one steals anything for the simple reason that there is nobody to steal from and nothing worth stealing. And besides, a Jew is not a thief by nature. That is, he may be a thief, but not the sort who will climb through a window or attack you with a knife. He will divert, pervert, subvert, and contravert as a matter of course, but he won't pull anything out of your pocket. He won't be caught like a common thief and led through the streets with a yellow placard on his back.

("A Yom Kippur Scandal")

Gossip is nature's telephone.

Remember, you must not sleep at the Seder. If you do, Elijah the Prophet will come with a bag on his shoulders. On the two first nights of Passover, Elijah the Prophet goes about looking for those who have fallen asleep at the Seder, and takes them away in his bag.

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.

No one knows whom the shoe pinches - no one.

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

Love is a taste of paradise.