Jonathan Sacks Quotes

15 Sourced Quotes

If we are to cherish freedom, and to guard it, we must remember what the alternative is: the bread of affliction and the bitter herbs of slavery.

Jonathan Sacks
Modernity is the transition from fate to choice.

Jonathan Sacks
Civil society rests on moral relationships. They are covenantal rather than contractual. They are brought about not by governments but by us a husbands and wives, parents, friends and citizens, and by the knowledge of what we do and what we are makes a difference to those around us. (...) Renewing society's resources of moral energy is the program, urgent but achievable.

Jonathan Sacks
The twenty-first century is, and will remain, the Age of Insecurity.

Jonathan Sacks
The first of the "request" prayers in the daily Amidah is a fractal. It replicates in miniature the structure of the Amidah as a whole.

Jonathan Sacks
Faith is not a certainty. Faith is the courage to live with uncertainty.

Jonathan Sacks
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
We have no idea where the world is going, except that it's going there very fast.

Jonathan Sacks
The meaning of the word "true" here is similar to the word Amen said after a blessing. It is an act of affirmation and ratification, reminding us that the Shema is less a prayer than a declaration of faith.

Jonathan Sacks
We no longer talk of virtues but of values, and values are tapes we play on the Walkman of the mind: any tune we choose so long as it does not disturb others.

Jonathan Sacks
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
Marriage, sanctified by the bond of fidelity, is the nearest life gets to a work of art.

Jonathan Sacks
In Judaism faith means wrestling with God as Jacob once wrestled with an angel...

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

Jonathan Sacks
Science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean.

Jonathan Sacks