“To take even this first step towards a happy society is a herculean task. After it has been accomplished, generations to come will see what the creature will do next. We none of us know; and we should be thoroughly on our guard against all those who pretend that they do.”

“Those humble but indomitable workers, to whom later generations referred by the collective name of Baale Masorah, Masters of Tradition, performed in obscurity their Herculean task of guarding the Biblical Text against loss or variation.”

“One person cannot be responsible for everything, even in their own lives. When we divide up responsibility according to what responsibility we want to have, we will no longer see this huge gap within society between those who take all the responsibility and those who take none.”

“Human beings are the sort of creature who has to know what to do when they don't know what to do. That's very paradoxical, and what we do is we prepare to do everything. We're on guard, and we prepare to do everything. It's very very stressful, but also something that's very engaging. It's something that heightens consciousness.”

“None of us are either all good or all bad – we’re all somewhere in between – but there comes a moment in each life when we take an important step, either toward the light or toward the dark…”

“If we want to transform reality, we begin with ourselves. We do not ask the world to change, and we do not fight against society. It has to be us ourselves who affirm our own values.”

“Accomplishment, the feeling of absorption in the flow, of mastery for its own sake, of knowing how to do this thing, is what keeps all of us doing what we do, if we like what we do at all.”

“I think there has to be a mutual respect. If there is maturity, it should become apparent to them that you are happy doing it and this is what you want to do. As a second generation, we have all these resources: Do we do what we want or follow passion?”

“After all, why should ordinary people want to contemplate the End, especially when we see the condition of those who do?”

“To us there has come a time, in the midst of swift happenings, to pause for a moment and take stock — to recall what our place in history has been, and to rediscover what we are and what we may be. If we do not, we risk the real peril of inaction.”