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Jonathan Sacks

Explore inspiring quotes by Jonathan Sacks, a remarkable figure whose words continue to inspire and motivate people around the world.

Top Categories by Jonathan Sacks

Discover the themes and topics this author explores most

society

9 quotes

religion

6 quotes

freedom

6 quotes

history

5 quotes

education

5 quotes

change

4 quotes

family

4 quotes

faith

4 quotes

Featured Quotes by Jonathan Sacks

Some of the most memorable quotes from this author

"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."

— Jonathan Sacksage

"Religiosity turns out to be the best indicator of civic involvement: it's more accurate than education, age, income, gender or race."

— Jonathan Sacksage

"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."

— Jonathan Sacksalone

"Part of the beauty of Judaism, and surely this is so for other faiths also, is that it gently restores control over time. Three times a day we stop what we are doing and turn to God in prayer. We recover perspective. We inhale a deep breath of eternity."

— Jonathan Sacksbeauty

"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."

— Jonathan Sacksbusiness

"Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent."

— Jonathan Sackschange

All Quotes by Jonathan Sacks

Browse all quotes from this author

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

"Religiosity turns out to be the best indicator of civic involvement: it's more accurate than education, age, income, gender or race."

-Jonathan Sacks

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

aloneView Quote

"Part of the beauty of Judaism, and surely this is so for other faiths also, is that it gently restores control over time. Three times a day we stop what we are doing and turn to God in prayer. We recover perspective. We inhale a deep breath of eternity."

-Jonathan Sacks

beautyView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

businessView Quote

"Governments cannot make marriages or turn feckless individuals into responsible citizens. That needs another kind of change agent."

-Jonathan Sacks

changeView Quote

"Much can and must be done by governments, but they cannot of themselves change lives."

-Jonathan Sacks

changeView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

changeView Quote

"What creates freedom? A revolution in the streets? Mass protest? Civil war? A change of government? The ousting of the old guard and its replacement by the new? History, more often than not, shows that hopes raised by such events are often dashed, sooner rather than later."

-Jonathan Sacks

changeView Quote

"We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty."

-Jonathan Sacks

courageView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

dreamsView Quote

"The world we build tomorrow is born in the stories we tell our children today. Politics moves the pieces. Education changes the game."

-Jonathan Sacks

educationView Quote

"To defend a country you need an army, but to defend a civilization you need education."

-Jonathan Sacks

educationView Quote

"Religiosity turns out to be the best indicator of civic involvement: it's more accurate than education, age, income, gender or race."

-Jonathan Sacks

educationView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

educationView Quote

"Jews know this in their bones. Our community could not exist for a day without its volunteers. They are the lifeblood of our organizations, whether they involve welfare, youth, education, care of the sick and elderly, or even protection against violence and abuse."

-Jonathan Sacks

educationView Quote

"Jews survived all the defeats, expulsions, persecutions and pogroms, the centuries in which they were regarded as a pariah people, even the Holocaust itself, because they never gave up the faith that one day they would be free to live as Jews without fear."

-Jonathan Sacks

faithView Quote

"The royals - all of them, especially Prince Philip and Prince Charles - have done outstanding work with the faith communities."

-Jonathan Sacks

faithView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

faithView Quote

"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, helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order."

-Jonathan Sacks

faithView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

familyView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

familyView Quote

"Whole communities are growing up without fathers or male role models. Bringing up a family in the best of circumstances is not easy. To try to do it by placing the entire burden on women - 91% of single-parent families in Britain are headed by the mother, according to census data - is practically absurd and morally indefensible."

-Jonathan Sacks

familyView Quote

"We do not always appreciate the role the Queen has played in one of the most significant changes in the past 60 years: the transformation of Britain into a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society. No one does interfaith better than the Royal family, and it starts with the Queen herself."

-Jonathan Sacks

familyView Quote

"We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty."

-Jonathan Sacks

"Jews survived all the defeats, expulsions, persecutions and pogroms, the centuries in which they were regarded as a pariah people, even the Holocaust itself, because they never gave up the faith that one day they would be free to live as Jews without fear."

-Jonathan Sacks

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

"Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holy of holies of Jewish time. It is that rarest of phenomena, a Jewish festival without food. Instead it is a day of fasting and prayer, introspection and self-judgment when, collectively and repeatedly, we confess our sins and pray to be written into God's Book of Life."

-Jonathan Sacks

"God's forgiveness allows us to be honest with ourselves. We recognize our imperfections, admit our failures, and plead to God for clemency."

-Jonathan Sacks

forgivenessView Quote

"The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation."

-Jonathan Sacks

freedomView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

freedomView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

freedomView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

freedomView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

freedomView Quote

"What creates freedom? A revolution in the streets? Mass protest? Civil war? A change of government? The ousting of the old guard and its replacement by the new? History, more often than not, shows that hopes raised by such events are often dashed, sooner rather than later."

-Jonathan Sacks

freedomView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

futureView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

futureView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

futureView Quote

"While we can remember the past, we cannot write the future. Only our children, the future of our community, can do that."

-Jonathan Sacks

futureView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

governmentView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

governmentView Quote

"What creates freedom? A revolution in the streets? Mass protest? Civil war? A change of government? The ousting of the old guard and its replacement by the new? History, more often than not, shows that hopes raised by such events are often dashed, sooner rather than later."

-Jonathan Sacks

governmentView Quote

"Frequent worshippers are also significantly more active citizens. They are more likely to belong to community organizations, especially those concerned with young people, health, arts and leisure, neighborhood and civic groups and professional associations."

-Jonathan Sacks

healthView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

historyView Quote

"Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins."

-Jonathan Sacks

historyView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

historyView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

historyView Quote

"What creates freedom? A revolution in the streets? Mass protest? Civil war? A change of government? The ousting of the old guard and its replacement by the new? History, more often than not, shows that hopes raised by such events are often dashed, sooner rather than later."

-Jonathan Sacks

historyView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

"We need to rediscover the idea of the common good and work together to build a home."

-Jonathan Sacks

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

"We are biological creatures. We are born, we live, we die. There is no transcendent purpose to existence. At best we are creatures of reason, and by using reason we can cure ourselves of emotional excess. Purged of both hope and fear, we find courage in the face of helplessness, insignificance and uncertainty."

-Jonathan Sacks

"There's always hope. You can lose everything else in the world, but Jews never lose hope."

-Jonathan Sacks

"The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation."

-Jonathan Sacks

imaginationView Quote

"If we are to negotiate the coming years safely, we may need a new kind of leadership. To put it more precisely, we need the rediscovery of an ancient kind of leadership that has rarely been given the prominence it deserves. I mean the leader as teacher."

-Jonathan Sacks

leadershipView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

moneyView Quote

"The people of Israel are entitled, as is any other nation, to live in peace and safety."

-Jonathan Sacks

peaceView Quote

"The world we build tomorrow is born in the stories we tell our children today. Politics moves the pieces. Education changes the game."

-Jonathan Sacks

politicsView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

politicsView Quote

"The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation."

-Jonathan Sacks

powerView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

powerView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

religionView Quote

"Since the 18th century, many Western intellectuals have predicted religion's imminent demise."

-Jonathan Sacks

religionView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

religionView Quote

"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?"

-Jonathan Sacks

religionView Quote

"Religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good... There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighborliness."

-Jonathan Sacks

religionView Quote

"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, helping us to construct together a gracious and generous social order."

-Jonathan Sacks

religionView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

respectView Quote

"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."

-Jonathan Sacks

scienceView Quote

"In the post-enlightenment Europe of the 19th century the highest authority was no longer the Church. Instead it was science. Thus was born racial anti-Semitism, based on two disciplines regarded as science in their day - the 'scientific study of race' and the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel."

-Jonathan Sacks

scienceView Quote

"Since Hiroshima and the Holocaust, science no longer holds its pristine place as the highest moral authority. Instead, that role is taken by human rights. It follows that any assault on Jewish life - on Jews or Judaism or the Jewish state - must be cast in the language of human rights."

-Jonathan Sacks

scienceView Quote

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