Maimonides - Mishneh Torah

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For how long is it a duty to study the Law? To the day of death.

Maimonides
When a man reflects on these things, studies all these created beings, from the angels and spheres down to human beings and so on, and realizes the divine wisdom manifested in them all, his love for God will increase, his soul will thirst, his very flesh will yearn to love God. He will be filled with fear and trembling, as he becomes conscious of his lowly condition, poverty, and insignificance, and compares himself with any of the great and holy bodies; still more when he compares himself with any one of the pure forms that are incorporeal and have never had association with any corporeal substance. He will then realize that he is a vessel full of shame, dishonor, and reproach, empty and deficient.

Maimonides
An artisan busies himself with his work for three hours each day and spends nine hours in study.

Maimonides
He who visits the sick is as though he would take away part of his sickness and lighten his pain.

Maimonides
For it is said, "You shall strengthen the stranger and the dweller in your midst and live with him," that is to say, strengthen him until he needs no longer fall upon the mercy of the community or be in need.

Maimonides
Astrology is a disease, not a science. All sorts of superstitions thrive under its shadow. Only fools and charlatans lend value to it.
Variant translation: Astrology is a sickness, not a science...It is a tree under the shade of which all sorts of superstitions thrive.

Maimonides
A scholar... should turn his ears from the talk of the illiterate and not take it to heart.

Maimonides
Abraham... was sunk in Ur of the Chaldees among foolish idolaters. His father and mother and all the people worshipped the stars.... He knew that all were mistaken and that what caused them to err was worship of the images which drove the Truth out of their minds.... It was proper to destroy and smash the idols so that the people should not err by them like those who think there is no god save images.

Maimonides
Thus they shall not miss this particular branch of the many branches of the Law and will have no need to roam and ramble about in other books in search of information on matters set forth in this treatise.

Maimonides
Every Israelite has a duty to study whether he is poor or rich, whether healthy or suffering, whether young or very old and in failing strength, even if he is poor and supported by charity or begs from door to door.

Maimonides
After a long time the great and awful Name was forgotten and the people, men, women and children, only recognized an image of wood or stone and the temple of wood or stone which they had been brought up from infancy to serve by bowing down.

Maimonides
The fundamental imperative about idolatry was that worship was not to be paid to any created thing such as a messenger, a planet, a star, one of the four elements, or to anything produced from them.

Maimonides