“It is better and more satisfactory to acquit a thousand guilty persons than to put a single innocent one to death.”

It is man’s duty to love and to fear God, even without hope of reward or fear of punishment.

The great sickness and the grievous evil consist in this: that all the things that man finds written in books, he presumes to think of as true-and all the more so if the books are old.

All the evils that men cause to each other because of certain desires, or opinions or religious principles, are rooted in ignorance. [All hatred would come to an end] when the earth was flooded with the knowledge of God.

There are eight levels of charity. The highest is when you strengthen a man’s hand until he need no longer be dependent upon others.

It is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him. In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision.

All forces that reside in the body are angels.

One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good – he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad – he and the world is destroyed.

All attributes ascribed to God are attributes of His acts, and do not imply that God has any qualities.

The soul is subject to health and disease, just as is the body. The health and disease of both, undoubtedly depend upon beliefs and customs, which are peculiar to mankind.

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.

God who preceded all existence is a refuge.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

God cannot be compared to anything.

He who does not understand that a dead lion is more alive than a living dog will remain a dog.

The second class of evils comprises such evils as people cause to each other, when, e.g. , some of them use their strength against others. These evils are more numerous than those of the first kind. They likewise originate in ourselves, though the sufferer himself cannot avert them.

Even the existence of this corporeal element, low as it in reality is, because it is the source of death and all evils, is likewise good for the permanence of the Universe and the continuation of the order of things, so that one thing departs and the other succeeds.