"Yiddish, the language which will ever bear witness to the violence and murder inflicted on us, bear the marks of our expulsions from land to land, the language which absorbed the wails of the fathers, the laments of the generations, the poison and bitterness of history, the language whose precious jewels are the undried, uncongealed Jewish tears."

“According to the generation is the music thereof.”

“The soul is imprisoned in the body, and the Lord... built two windows in the wall of the prison... Unfortunately, the windows have curtains—eyelids; and a man whose soul is impure, feeling himself scrutinized, lets down the curtains and conceals the soul.”

“There are melodies that must have words... and melodies that sing themselves without words. The latter are of a higher grade. But these, too, depend on a voice and lips,... hence are not yet altogether pure, not yet genuine spirit. Genuine melody sings itself without a voice. It sings inside, within the heart, in man's very entrails!”

“To be of the eternal, you must be of the earth.”

“Don't assume, Jewish intellectuals, that you are doing your duty by working... for so-called Humanity.... You are lighting a fire beneath the open sky, while your own family in your own house is freezing.”

“is a denial of this world, a severance from reality, an abdication, a means of redemption from, not for, life.”