Top 248 Hebrew Quotes & Sayings

The Hebrew will turn Christian; he grows kind.

in order to confer their lost Nationality upon exiled Jews , the British with the help of the League of Nations began to rehabilitate the old Hebrew country, Palestine, with its long lost children. The Jews had maintained their race, religion, culture and language; and all they wanted was their natural territory to complete their Nationality. The reconstruction of the Hebrew Nation on Palestine is just an affirmation of the fact that Country, Race, Religion, Culture and Language must exist unequivocally together to form the Nation idea.

German accents and Hassidic accents aren't that romantic. They're more harsh. Although Hebrew, when spoken by certain people, sounds beautiful. There's this beautiful woman I know who speaks Hebrew, and when she speaks, it's so attractive. Maybe it's who's speaking it.

It's problematic being an Arab who writes in Hebrew.

The revival of Hebrew, as a spoken language, is a fascinating story, which I'm afraid I cannot squeeze into a few sentences. But, let me give you a clue. Think about Elizabethan English, where the entire English language behaved pretty much like molten lava, like a volcano in mid-eruption. Modern Hebrew has some things in common with Elizabethan English. It is being reshaped and it's expanding very rapidly in various directions. This is not to say that every one of us Israeli writers is a William Shakespeare, but there is a certain similarity to Elizabethan English.

I'm twelve years old. I run into a synagogue. I ask the rabbi the meaning of life. He tells me the meaning of life but he tells it to me in Hebrew. I don't understand Hebrew. Then he wants to charge me $600 for Hebrew lessons.

With the Hebrew Bible, you're living in an austere world.

The very same book, even if it is translated very accurately, let's say from Hebrew into English or from English into Hebrew, becomes a different book because language is a musical instrument.

Begin thinking of death and you are no longer sure of your life. It's a Hebrew proverb.

Some providences, like Hebrew letters, must be read backwards.

What do Japanese Jews love to eat? Hebrew National Tsunami.

The Hebrew Bible defines Judaism. It's certainly true that the Talmudic interpretations become authoritative and normative, but they are interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. So that is always there.

The Providence of God is like Hebrew words-it can be read only backwards.

My two sons speak Hebrew, and are familiar with the scriptures and with rabbinic literature. This is the way we live.

I enjoyed translating half a Bible page, with my mom back in Australia, into Hebrew.

I was raised in a Jewish family, but since I was adopted, my parents sent me to Hebrew school and Bible chapel, so I got the best of both worlds - singing in both a choir in Bible chapel and a chorus in Hebrew school. It shaped me and my voice.

However, the word madda in modern Hebrew specifically means science.

I decline to accept Hebrew mythology as a guide to twentieth-century science.

I just went to Hebrew school, had a bar mitzvah. No crazy weird Jewish cult.

I never learnt Hebrew because my health was fragile, and it was thought that learning Hebrew would be an added burden. I regret it, because I would like to be able to join in fully. Not that I am a believer, but I would like to be.

I have always been edified by Hebrew prayers.

I still live today with my mom sending me, you know, Hebrew Scriptures or phrases or celebrating.

My own interest is far more in the Hebrew Bible. My religion is more personally related to the Hebrew Bible than it is to the New Testament.

People think of black English as ungrammatical, but it bears the same relationship to standard English as contemporary Hebrew does to ancient Hebrew.

Latin! The language of God! Or perhaps He speaks Hebrew? I suppose that's more likely and it will make things rather awkward in heaven, won't it? Will we all have to learn Hebrew?

I speak fluent Hebrew and even dream in Hebrew when we visit there, once or twice a year.

I went to Hebrew school but opted out of a bar mitzvah.

Literature belongs first and foremost to the language in which it is being written. The very same book, even if it is translated very accurately, let's say from Hebrew into English or from English into Hebrew, becomes a different book because language is a musical instrument.

I work in Hebrew. Hebrew is deeply inspired by other languages. Not now, for the last three thousand years, Hebrew has been penetrated and fertilized by ancient Semitic languages - by Aramaic, by Greek, by Latin, by Arabic, by Yiddish, by Latino, by German, by Russian, by English, I could go on and on. It's very much like English. The English language took in many many fertilizations, many many genes, from other languages, from foreign languages - Latin, French, Nordic languages, German, Scandinavian languages. Every language has influences and is an influence.

Most Arab Israelis speak Hebrew, but not the other way around. It's about time that changed.

There are certain concepts, which exist in English, and are unthinkable, untranslatable into Hebrew and vice versa. Hebrew has a system of tenses, which is, in a big way, different from the English system of tenses, probably different than any European system of tenses, which means a different sense of reality, which means a different concept of time. So, things can be translated, but they become different.

I didn't go to Hebrew school.

There's no question that I am biased toward the Hebrew calendar over the Gregorian one.

I'm a Persian Jew, and we don't speak Hebrew.

Sublimity is Hebrew by birth.

There are certain concepts, which exist in english, and are unthinkable, untranslatable into Hebrew and vice versa.

There is no other language as similar to Hebrew like Arabic.

You have miracles [in the Hebrew Bible], yes, but they're not the work, normally, of demons.

I learned enough Hebrew to stagger through a meaningless ceremony that I scarcely remember.

Nowhere in the Hebrew Scriptures does it say that God is omnipotent.

Before Ben-Yehuda... Jews could speak Hebrew; after him they did.

All of my friends on the street we're Jewish. I went to a lot of bar and bat mitzvahs. I even learned a little Hebrew.

It is impossible for me to conceive of a character more utterly detestable than that of the Hebrew god.

Hebrew in America has a bemusing past. The Puritans, out of scriptural piety, once dreamed of establishing Hebrew as the national language.

I have trouble reading modern Hebrew. In the 1950s, I could read anything. I don't know how much experience you've had with contemporary Hebrew. It's quite difficult.

Hebrew is my first language, so it's really the most personal and the most simple. When I write in Hebrew, I don't look for sophistication in music; it's just pure emotion that comes out.

In the Hebrew language, there's no such word as coincidence.

Hebrew is the language I use to thank the Creator and, also, to swear on the road.

My musical instrument is Hebrew and, to me, this is the most important fact about my writing.

My musical instrument is Hebrew and, to me, this is the most important fact about my writing. I write in words. I don write in sounds or in shapes or in flavors. I write in words. And my words are Hebrew words.

Hebrew is this unique thing that you cannot translate to any other language. It has to do with its history.

Since the Exodus, freedom has always spoken with a Hebrew accent.

Hebrew is deeply inspired by other languages.

There is no word in Hebrew for religion, by the way.

It is only in Hebrew that you feel the full meaning of it -- all the associations which a different word has.

Back home, almost everything I did, I did in Hebrew. I went to drama school in Hebrew, my whole career was in Hebrew, and to switch languages was something that was fascinating and more complicated than I expected it to be, even though I've been speaking English since I could speak.

It sometimes happens to me while writing, that I seek a word; mischievous as it is it appears in English, it appears in Arabic, but refuses to come in Hebrew. To some extent I made up my Hebrew. Unquestionably, the influence of Arabic is dominant, my syntax is almost Arabic.

It is too late to be studying Hebrew; it is more important to understand even the slang of today.

Since I was 18 years old, I have taught the Bible. For the last fifteen or twenty years, I have taught every Sunday when I was home or near my own house, so that would be 35 or 40 times per year. Half of those Sundays, the text comes from the Hebrew Bible. I have had a deep personal interest in the Holy Land and in the teachings of the Hebrew people. God has a special position for the Jewish people, the Hebrews, or whatever. I know the difference between ancient Israel and Judaea, and I know the history. I don't have any problem with the Jewish people.

When I write in Hebrew, I don't look for sophistication in music; it's just pure emotion that comes out.