There is a place in Eden and in Gehenna for every soul. The Zaddik receives his place and the place of a wicked man as well. By the same token, the wicked man receives his own place and the place of a Zaddik.
~ Hagigah, 15
No on partakes of the enjoyments of the World-to-Come because of his father’s merits.
~ Midrash Tehillim, 146, 2
I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being–that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.
~ in Harper Magazine, Sept. 1899
There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
~ in the New York Tribune, Sept. 27, 1871
Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is a sort of low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time his is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the “noblest work of God.”
~ in Letters from the Earth
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
~ in Following the Equator
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you.
~ in Following the Equator
