Israel Zangwill Quotes

20 Sourced Quotes

No Jew was ever fool enough to turn Christian unless he was a clever man.

Israel Zangwill
No... the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell you—he will be the fusion of all races, perhaps the coming superman.

Israel Zangwill
A man likes his wife to be just clever enough to appreciate his cleverness, and just stupid enough to admire it.

Israel Zangwill
The only true love is love at first sight; second sight dispels it.

Israel Zangwill
The past is for inspiration, not imitation, for continuation, not repetition.

Israel Zangwill
Artistic truth is for me literally the highest truth: art may seize the essence of persons and movements no less truly, and certainly far more vitally, than a scientific generalization unifies a chaos of phenomena. Time and Space are only the conditions through which spiritual facts struggle. Hence I have here and there permitted myself liberties with these categories.

Israel Zangwill
What clinical lectures I will give in heaven, demonstrating the ignorance of doctors!

Israel Zangwill
The wonderful poems interpreting with equal magic the romance of strange lands and times, or the modern soul, naked and unashamed, as if clothed in its own complexity; the humorous-tragic questionings of the universe; the delicious travel-pictures and fantasies; the lucid criticisms of art, and politics, and philosophy, informed with malicious wisdom, shimmering with poetry and wit.

Israel Zangwill
You cannot be anything if you want to be everything. But if you are content to be something, you may by analogy be many things.

Israel Zangwill
The law of dislike for the unlike will always prevail. And whereas the unlike is normally situated at a safe distance, the Jews bring the unlike into the heart of every milieu, and must there defend a frontier line as large as the world.

Israel Zangwill
The vulgar herd catches at the gross apparent fact, but the man of insight knows what lies on the surfaces does lie.

Israel Zangwill
In how many lives does Love really play a dominant part? The average taxpayer is no more capable of a grand passion than of a grand opera.

Israel Zangwill
America is God's crucible, the great melting pot where all the races of Europe are melting and reforming!

Israel Zangwill
Selfishness is the only real atheism; aspiration, unselfishness, the only real religion.

Israel Zangwill
An Edward's England spat us out - a band
Foredoomed to redden Vistula or Rhine,
And leaf-like toss with every wind malign.
All mocked the faith they could not understand.

Israel Zangwill
How full and rich a world
Theirs to inhabit is—
Sweet scent of grass and bloom,
Playmates' glad symphony,
Cool touch of western wind,
Sunshine's divine caress.


How should they know or feel
They are in darkness?


But, oh, the miracle!
If a Redeemer came,
Laid finger on their eyes—
One touch and what a world,
New-born in loveliness!

Israel Zangwill
Oh, for the simple life,
For tents and starry skies!

Israel Zangwill
Scratch the Christian and you find the pagan — spoiled.

Israel Zangwill
What a dark world—who knows?—
Ours to inhabit is!
One touch and what a strange
Glory might burst on us,
What a hid universe!

Israel Zangwill
There are three reasons why men of genius have long hair. One is, that they forget it is growing. The second is, that they like it. The third is, that it comes cheaper; they wear it long for the same reason they wear their hats long.

Israel Zangwill