Sholom Aleichem > Quotes

“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.”
― Sholem Aleichem

“No matter how bad things get, you've got to go on living, even if it kills you.”
― Sholem Aleichem

“You see how it is, my dear friends. There's no pleasing everyone. It's hopeless to even try, and the more you play the peacemaker, the less peaceful things become.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“When the heart is full it runs out of the eyes.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“This is an ugly and mean world, and only to spite it we mustn't weep. If you want to know, this is the constant source of my good spirit, of my humor. Not to cry, out of spite, only to laugh out of spite, only to laugh.”
― Sholem Aleichem

“Life is a dream for the wise,
a game for the fool, a comedy for the
rich, a tradegy for the poor.”
― Sholom Aleichem

“A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction.”
― Sholom Aleichem

“And books -- she swallows like dumplings.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Selected Stories of Sholom Aleichem

“I mention her name and the old pain returns. Forget her, you say? How can you forget a living human being?”
― Sholom Aleichem

“Nothing begets friendship so readily as trouble.”
― Sholom Aleichem

“There is nothing in the world, I tell you, so maddening as a person who doesn't answer when you abuse him. You shout and you scold, you are ready to burst a gut, and he stands there and smiles....”
― Sholem Aleichem, Tevye's Daughters: Collected Stories of Sholom Aleichem

“The worm in the radish doesn't think there is anything sweeter.”
― Sholem Aleichem

“What eyes can tell you in a minute, a mouth will never say in a day.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“Like they say: you stew up your troubles and eat a hearty meal.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“Words were made only for babblers, women, and lawyers. Like Bismarck once said: “Words were given to us to hide our thoughts.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“A bank hates to rush —it takes its time.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“There’s an old saying, you know, that if you scratch a secret, you’ll find a thief.”
― Sholom Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories

“You know what, Pan Sholem Aleichem? Let’s talk about something more cheerful. Have you heard any news of the cholera in Odessa?”
― Sholom Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories

“She’s not my first wife, you know, but my third. And a third wife, they say, is like the December sun.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“Not that I’m waiting with bated breath for your presents. I need your diamond brooches and bracelets like last year’s snow.”
― Sholom Aleichem, The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl and Motl, the Cantor's Son

“It was a grief about which you could not, must not, dare not speak.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“The Bible tells us to get along with our neighbor. So our commentator Rashi says—but if his dog barks, muzzle him.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“And lawyers are just like doctors. Whatever one says, the other says just the opposite. But they all take money and give advice. Each of them, different advice.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“Who could guess he’d have a tooth pulled by Shmelke the healer and lie down the next morning and die? It’s as my mother says: “Tomorrow is another day—but whose?”
― Sholom Aleichem, The Letters of Menakhem-Mendl and Sheyne-Sheyndl and Motl, the Cantor's Son

“I never turn down a drink. Among friend's it's always appropriate. A man is only a man as they say but brandy is still brandy. You'll find that in the Talmud too.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Tevye the Dairyman and the Railroad Stories

“That’s what I thought at the time. On second thought, perhaps I didn’t really think at all.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“I told them that Karl Marx was a theory and that theories change. Today it was this theory, tomorrow that one. But Tolstoi was a great artist and art remains forever.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“When I tell a story, I tell it when I want to tell it, not when you want to hear it.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“Shh, let me finish,” Mama said, and banged her elbow into my ribs. “Remember, now. Neither small nor tight. A roomy waist and a pleat. For God’s sake, a pleat.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories

“I can’t stand looking at those nasty, smiling, yes-men. They’ll say yes to an August snowstorm and agree to fish growing on a cherry tree. If I run into someone like that, I just want to smear honey all over him and let the bees have a picnic.”
― Sholem Aleichem, Happy New Year! and Other Stories