Top 100 Maimonides Quotes (2024 Update)

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

— Maimonides

2. “Teach thy tongue to say ‘I do not know,’ and thou shalt progress.”

— Maimonides

3. “You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.”

— Maimonides

4. “In finances, be strict with yourself, generous with others.”

— Maimonides

5. “The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it.”

— Maimonides

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

— Maimonides

7. “Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.”

— Maimonides

8. “We each decide whether to make ourselves learned or ignorant, compassionate or cruel, generous or miserly. No one forces us. No one decides for us, no one drags us along one path or the other. We are responsible for what we are.”

— Maimonides

9. “There is no difference between the worry of a human mother and an animal mother for their offspring. A mother’s love does not derive from the intellect but from the emotions, in animals just as in humans.”

— Maimonides

10. “I will destroy my enemies by converting them to friends.”

— Maimonides

11. “Let nothing which can be treated by diet be treated by other means.”

— Maimonides

12. “In accordance with the divine wisdom, genesis can only take place through destruction.”

— Maimonides

13. “Commune with your own heart on your bed and be still.”

— Maimonides

14. “Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen.”

— Maimonides

15. “First Theory. There is no Providence at all for anything in the Universe; all parts of the Universe, the heavens and what they contain, owe their origin to accident and chance; there exists no being that rules and governs them or provides for them. This is the theory of Epicurus...”

— Maimonides

16. “The more necessary a thing is for living beings, the more easily it is found and the cheaper it is; the less necessary it is, the rarer and dearer it is.”

— Maimonides

17. “Lose with truth and right rather than gain with falsehood and wrong.”

— Maimonides

18. “Those who are incapable of attaining to supreme religious values include the black coloured people and those who resemble them in their climates. Their nature is like the mute animals. Their level among existing things is below that of a man and above that of a monkey.”

— Maimonides

19. “In the realm of Nature there is nothing purposeless, trivial, or unnecessary.”

— Maimonides

20. “You will certainly not doubt the necessity of studying astronomy and physics, if you are desirous of comprehending the relation between the world and Providence as it is in reality, and not according to imagination.”

— Maimonides

21. “God is identical with His attributes, so that it may be said that He is the knowledge, the knower, and the known.”

— Maimonides

22. “It is possible that the meaning of wisdom in Hebrew indicates aptitude for stratagems and the application of thought in such a way that the stratagems and ruses may be used in achieving either rational or moral virtues, or in achieving skill in a practical art, or in working evil and wickedness.”

— Maimonides

23. “Every human being should regard himself as if he were exactly balanced between innocence and guilt. Simultaneously he should regard the world as being in the same case. It follows then that if he performs one good deed, he has weighted the scales in favour of both himself and of the whole world, and thus brought about salvation both for himself and for all the inhabitants of the world.”

— Maimonides

24. “There are eight rungs in charity. The highest is when you help a man to help himself.”

— Maimonides

25. “Everyone entrusted with a mission is an angel.”

— Maimonides

26. “A wise man is a greater asset to a nation than a king.”

— Maimonides

27. “And so our rabbis decreed that a man should honor his wife more than himself, and love her as much as he loves himself.”

— Maimonides

28. “That which is produced with intention has passed over from non-existence to existence.”

— Maimonides

29. “We suffer from the evils which we, by our own free will, inflict on ourselves and ascribe them to God, who is far from being connected with them!”

— Maimonides

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

— Maimonides

31. “Inspire me with love for my art and for thy creatures. In the sufferer let me see only the human being.”

— Maimonides

32. “Astrology is a disease, not a science.”

— Maimonides

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

— Maimonides

34. “Every man whose character traits all lie in the mean is called a wise man.”

— Maimonides

35. “The goal of good health is to enable a person to acquire wisdom.”

— Maimonides

36. “Nobody is ever impoverished through the giving of charity.”

— Maimonides

37. “I believe with perfect faith that the Creator, blessed be his name, is not a body, and that he is free from all accidents of matter, and that he has not any form whatsoever.”

— Maimonides

38. “The first kind of evil is that which is caused to man by the circumstance that he is subject to genesis and destruction, or that he possesses a body.”

— Maimonides

39. “Anticipate charity by preventing poverty.”

— Maimonides

40. “Consequently he who wishes to attain to human perfection, must therefore first study Logic, next the various branches of Mathematics in their proper order, then Physics, and lastly Metaphysics.”

— Maimonides

41. “All forces that reside in the body are angels.”

— Maimonides

42. “Work before eating, rest after eating. Eat not ravenously, filling the mouth gulp after gulp without breathing space.”

— Maimonides

43. “If a person studies too much and exhausts his reflective powers, he will be confused, and will not be able to apprehend even that which had been within the power of his apprehension. For the powers of the body are all alike in this respect.”

— Maimonides

44. “The definition of a thing includes its efficient cause; and since God is the Primal Cause, He cannot be defined, or described by a partial definition. A quality, whether psychical, physical, emotional, or quantitative, is always regarded as something distinct from its substratum;.”

— Maimonides

45. “It is of great advantage that man should know his station, and not imagine that the whole universe exists only for him.”

— Maimonides

46. “Just as a person is commanded to honor and revere his father, so he is under an obligation to honor and revere his teacher, even to a greater extent than his father; for his father gave him life in this world, while his teacher instructs him in wisdom, secures for him life in the world to come.”

— Maimonides

47. “The true work of God is all good, since it is existence.”

— Maimonides

48. “God who preceded all existence is a refuge...”

— Maimonides

49. “Man’s shortcomings and sins are all due to the substance of the body and not to its form; while all his merits are exclusively due to his form.”

— Maimonides

50. “Actions are divided as regards their object into four classes; they are either purposeless, unimportant, or vain, or good .”

— Maimonides