Famous Quotes By Jonathan Sacks

 

1. A perfect storm is in the making: financial uncertainty, economic downturn, government cuts, rising unemployment and a future that looks less clear the more we try to fathom it.
2. A society in which there are high levels of voluntary activity will simply be a better, happier place than one where there are not.
3. A survey carried out across the U.S. between 2004 and 2006 showed that frequent church- or synagogue-goers are more likely to give money to charity.
4. Britain, relative to the U.S., is a highly secular society. Philanthropy alone cannot fill the gap left by government cutbacks. And the sources of altruism go deep into our evolutionary past.
5. Dreams are where we visit the many lands and landscapes of human possibility and discover the one where we feel at home. The great religious leaders were all dreamers.
6. Europe is dying. That is one of the unsayable truths of our time. We are undergoing the moral equivalent of climate change and no one is talking about it.
7. Focus on the mind and the soul. Read. Study. Enrol in a course of lectures. Pray. Become a member of a religious congregation. Study the Bible or other ancient works of wisdom.
8. Follow your passion. Nothing - not wealth, success, accolades or fame - is worth spending a lifetime doing things you don't enjoy.
9. Food prices are often kept artificially high. The result is that the Millennium Development Goals set out by the United Nations at the start of the new millennium are not being reached. Fine words have not yet been turned into deeds.
10. Freedom begins with what we teach our children. That is why Jews became a people whose passion is education, whose heroes are teachers and whose citadels are schools.
11. Freedom is not won by merely overthrowing a tyrannical ruler or an oppressive regime. That is usually only the prelude to a new tyranny, a new oppression.
12. God's forgiveness allows us to be honest with ourselves. We recognize our imperfections, admit our failures, and plead to God for clemency.
13. Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent.
14. If the history of the Day of Atonement has anything to say to us now it is: never relieve individuals of moral responsibility. The more we have, the more we grow.
15. If you want a free society, teach your children what oppression tastes like. Tell them how many miracles it takes to get from here to there. Above all, encourage them to ask questions. Teach them to think for themselves.
16. In an ecology of love, people can relate in trust and face the future without fear. They do not need to play it safe. They can take uncertainty in their stride.
17. In thinking about religion and society in the 21st century, we should broaden the conversation about faith from doctrinal debates to the larger question of how it might inspire us to strengthen the bonds of belonging that redeem us from our solitude,
18. In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint.
19. Jews have deep respect for the Queen and the royal family. We say a prayer for them every Sabbath in synagogue. We recite a special blessing on seeing the Queen.
20. Make space in your life for the things that matter, for family and friends, love and generosity, fun and joy. Without this, you will burn out in mid-career and wonder where your life went.
21. Much can and must be done by governments, but they cannot of themselves change lives.
22. Religion is the best antidote to the individualism of the consumer age. The idea that society can do without it flies in the face of history and, now, evolutionary biology.
23. Religion survives because it answers three questions that every reflective person must ask. Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live?
24. Religiosity turns out to be the best indicator of civic involvement: it's more accurate than education, age, income, gender or race.
25. Science will explain how but not why. It talks about what is, not what ought to be. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive it can tell us about causes but it cannot tell us about purposes. Indeed, science disavows purposes.
26. Since the 18th century, many Western intellectuals have predicted religion's imminent demise.
27. Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.
28. Technology gives us power, but it does not and cannot tell us how to use that power. Thanks to technology, we can instantly communicate across the world, but it still doesn't help us know what to say.
29. The faith religious believers have in God is small compared to the faith people put in politicians, knowing how many times they have been disappointed in the past but still insisting that this time it will be different.
30. The message of Passover remains as powerful as ever. Freedom is won not on the battlefield but in the classroom and the home. Teach your children the history of freedom if you want them never to lose it.
31. The people of Israel are entitled, as is any other nation, to live in peace and safety.
32. The royals - all of them, especially Prince Philip and Prince Charles - have done outstanding work with the faith communities.
33. The world we build tomorrow is born in the stories we tell our children today. Politics moves the pieces. Education changes the game.
34. There's always hope. You can lose everything else in the world, but Jews never lose hope.
35. To defend a country you need an army, but to defend a civilization you need education.
36. True freedom requires the rule of law and justice, and a judicial system in which the rights of some are not secured by the denial of rights to others.
37. We from every religion feel comfortable in Britain because there is a host. The Church of England is a good host, it has been a major force in shaping England into such a tolerant society.
38. We need to rediscover the idea of the common good and work together to build a home.
39. While everyone else is thinking about economics and politics, executive salaries and the future of the euro, do the opposite, even if it's hard. Invest in the spirit.
40. While we can remember the past, we cannot write the future. Only our children, the future of our community, can do that.