Top 100 Maimonides Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 2 of 3

51. “A truth does not become greater by repetition.”

— Maimonides

52. “No form remains permanently in a substance; a constant change takes place, one form is taken off and another is put on.”

— Maimonides

53. “Giving is most blessed and most acceptable when the donor remains completely anonymous.”

— Maimonides

54. “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.”

— Maimonides

55. “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.”

— Maimonides

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

— Maimonides

57. “He who immerses himself in sexual intercourse will be assailed by premature aging, his strength will wane, his eyes will weaken, and a bad odour will emit from his mouth and his armpits, his teeth will fall out and many other maladies will afflict him.”

— Maimonides

58. “It should not be believed that all beings exist for the sake of the existence of man. On the contrary, all the other beings too have been intended for their own sakes and not for the sake of anything else.”

— Maimonides

59. “If God were corporeal, He would consist of atoms, and would not be one; or He would be comparable to other beings: but a comparison implies the existence of similar and of dissimilar elements, and God would thus not be one. A corporeal God would be finite, and an external power would be required to define those limits.”

— Maimonides

60. “God cannot be compared to anything. Note this.”

— Maimonides

61. “What is lofty can be said in any language. What is mean should be said in none.”

— Maimonides

62. “Those who grieve find comfort in weeping and in arousing their sorrow until the body is too tired to bear the inner emotions.”

— Maimonides

63. “In so far as the soul is a force residing in the body; it has therefore been said that the properties of the soul depend of the condition of the body.”

— Maimonides

64. “Man’s obsession to add to his wealth and honor is the chief source of his misery.”

— Maimonides

65. “A small amount of wine such as three or four glasses is of benefit for the preservation of the health of human beings and an excellent remedy for most illnesses.”

— Maimonides

66. “The philosophers likewise assume that in Nature there is nothing in vain, so that everything that is not the product of human industry serves a certain purpose, which may be known or unknown to us.”

— Maimonides

67. “The person who wishes to attain human perfection should study logic first, next mathematics, then physics, and, lastly, metaphysics.”

— Maimonides

68. “We are obligated to be more scrupulous in fulfilling the commandment of charity than any other positive commandment because charity is the sign of a righteous man.”

— Maimonides

69. “Astrology is not an art, it is a disease.”

— Maimonides

70. “The being which has absolute existence, which has never been and will never be without existence, is not in need of an agent.”

— Maimonides

71. “In the beginning we must simplify the subject, thus unavoidably falsifying it, and later we must sophisticate away the falsely simple beginning.”

— Maimonides

72. “For it is said, “You shall strengthen the stranger and the dweller in your midst and live with him,” that is to say, strengthen him until he needs no longer fall upon the mercy of the community or be in need.”

— Maimonides

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

— Maimonides

74. “The basic principle is that there is a First Being who brought every existing thing into being, for if it be supposed that he did not exist, then nothing else could possibly exist.”

— Maimonides

75. “The knowledge of God, the formation of ideas, the mastery of desire and passion, the distinction between that which is to be chosen and that which is to be rejected, all these man owes to his form...”

— Maimonides

76. “The whole object of the Prophets and the Sages was to declare that a limit is set to human reason where it must halt.”

— Maimonides

77. “He, however, who begins with Metaphysics, will not only become confused in matters of religion, but will fall into complete infidelity.”

— Maimonides

78. “The more we desire for that which is superfluous, the more we meet with difficulties; our strength and possessions are spent in unnecessary things, and are wanting when required for that which is necessary.”

— Maimonides

79. “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.”

— Maimonides

80. “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.”

— Maimonides

81. “The question, “What is the purpose thereof?” cannot be asked about anything which is not the product of an agent; therefore we cannot ask what is the purpose of the existence of God.”

— Maimonides

82. “There is no difference between the pain of humans and the pain of other living beings, since the love and tenderness of the mother for the young are not produced by reasoning, but by feeling, and this faculty exists not only in humans but in most living beings.”

— Maimonides

83. “Transient bodies are only subject to destruction through their substance and not through their form, nor can the essence of their form be destroyed; in this respect they are permanent.”

— Maimonides

84. “According to Maimonides, the moral faculty would, in fact, not have been required, if man had remained a purely rational being. It is only through the senses that “the knowledge of good and evil” has become indispensable. The narrative of Adam’s fall is, according to Maimonides, an allegory representing the relation which exists between sensation, moral faculty, and intellect.”

— Maimonides

85. “There are four different theories concerning Divine Providence; they are all ancient, known from the time of the Prophets, when the true law was revealed to enlighten these dark regions.”

— Maimonides

86. “You will find that there is no other difference of opinion as regards any portions of the Universe, except that the philosophers believe in the Eternity of the Universe and we believe in the Creation. Note this.”

— Maimonides

87. “For every force charged by God, may He be exalted, with some business is an angel put in charge...”

— Maimonides

88. “You must consider, when reading this treatise, that mental perception, because connected with matter, is subject to conditions similar to those to which physical perception is subject.”

— Maimonides

89. “Eliphas never abandoned his belief that the fate of man is the result of justice, that we do not know all our shortcomings for which we are punished, nor the way how we incur the punishment through them.”

— Maimonides

90. “In accordance with the divine wisdom, genesis can only take place through destruction, and without destruction of the individual members of the species the species themselves would not exist permanently. Thus the true kindness, and beneficence, and goodness of God is clear.”

— Maimonides

91. “The so-called evils are evils only in relation to a certain thing, and that which is evil in relation to a certain existing thing, either includes the non-existence of that thing or the non-existence of some of its good conditions.”

— Maimonides

92. “To the totality of purposes of the perfect Law there belong the abandonment, depreciation, and restraint of desires in so far as possible.”

— Maimonides

93. “It is thus necessary to examine all things according to their essence, to infer from every species such true and well established propositions as may assist us in the solution of metaphysical problems.”

— Maimonides

94. “Be convinced that, if man were able to reach the end without preparatory studies, such studies would not be preparatory but tiresome and utterly superfluous.”

— Maimonides

95. “Now, we occupy a lowly position, both in space and rank in comparison with the heavenly sphere, and the Almighty is Most High not in space, but with respect to absolute existence, greatness and power.”

— Maimonides

96. “Hold firmly to your word.”

— Maimonides

97. “Further, there are things of which the mind understands one part, but remains ignorant of the other; and when man is able to comprehend certain things, it does not follow that he must be able to comprehend everything.”

— Maimonides

98. “The same is the case with those opinions of man to which he has been accustomed from his youth; he likes them, defends them, and shuns the opposite views.”

— Maimonides

99. “Do not imagine that what we have said of the insufficiency of our understanding and of its limited extent is an assertion founded only on the Bible: for philosophers likewise assert the same, and perfectly understand it,- without having regard to any religion or opinion.”

— Maimonides

100. “Every ignoramus imagines that all that exists, exists with a view to his individual sake; it is as if there were nothing that exists except him. And if something happens to him that is contrary to what he wishes, he makes the trenchant judgement that all that exists is an evil.”

— Maimonides