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Jonathan Sacks

58 quotes

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (1948–2020) was a British Orthodox rabbi, philosopher, and author who served as Chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom from 1991 to 2013. A prolific writer and public intellectual, Sacks addressed themes of faith, morality, and the challenges of living in a diverse society with warmth, clarity, and intellectual rigor.

“Jews read the books of Moses not just as history but as divine command. The question to which they are an answer is not, 'What happened?' but rather, 'How then shall I live?' And it's only with the exodus that the life of the commands really begins.”

— Jonathan Sacks

History

All Quotes by Jonathan Sacks

“Technology gives us power, but it does not and cannot tell us how to use that power. Thanks to technology, we can instantly communicate across the world, but it still doesn't help us know what to say.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Power

“Follow your passion. Nothing - not wealth, success, accolades or fame - is worth spending a lifetime doing things you don't enjoy.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Success

“Stabilizing the euro is one thing, healing the culture that surrounds it is another. A world in which material values are everything and spiritual values nothing is neither a stable state nor a good society. The time has come for us to recover the Judeo-Christian ethic of human dignity in the image of God.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Society

“The people of Israel are entitled, as is any other nation, to live in peace and safety.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Peace

“Food prices are often kept artificially high. The result is that the Millennium Development Goals set out by the United Nations at the start of the new millennium are not being reached. Fine words have not yet been turned into deeds.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Food

“To defend a country you need an army, but to defend a civilization you need education.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Education

“Some years ago there was a study to discover the most stressful occupation. It turned out not to be the head of a large business, football manager or prime minister, but rather: bus driver.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Business

“Freedom begins with what we teach our children. That is why Jews became a people whose passion is education, whose heroes are teachers and whose citadels are schools.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Education

“The royals - all of them, especially Prince Philip and Prince Charles - have done outstanding work with the faith communities.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Faith

“In an ecology of love, people can relate in trust and face the future without fear. They do not need to play it safe. They can take uncertainty in their stride.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Fear

“Jews survived all the defeats, expulsions, persecutions and pogroms, the centuries in which they were regarded as a pariah people, even the Holocaust itself, because they never gave up the faith that one day they would be free to live as Jews without fear.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Faith

“Freedom is not won by merely overthrowing a tyrannical ruler or an oppressive regime. That is usually only the prelude to a new tyranny, a new oppression.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Freedom

“The faith religious believers have in God is small compared to the faith people put in politicians, knowing how many times they have been disappointed in the past but still insisting that this time it will be different.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Faith

“In virtually every Western society in the 1960s there was a moral revolution, an abandonment of its entire traditional ethic of self-restraint.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Society

“Science will explain how but not why. It talks about what is, not what ought to be. Science is descriptive, not prescriptive it can tell us about causes but it cannot tell us about purposes. Indeed, science disavows purposes.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Science

“Make space in your life for the things that matter, for family and friends, love and generosity, fun and joy. Without this, you will burn out in mid-career and wonder where your life went.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Family

“A society in which there are high levels of voluntary activity will simply be a better, happier place than one where there are not.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Society

“While we can remember the past, we cannot write the future. Only our children, the future of our community, can do that.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Future

“Religiosity turns out to be the best indicator of civic involvement: it's more accurate than education, age, income, gender or race.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Age

“We do not always appreciate the role the Queen has played in one of the most significant changes in the past 60 years: the transformation of Britain into a multi-ethnic, multi-faith society. No one does interfaith better than the Royal family, and it starts with the Queen herself.”

— Jonathan Sacks

Family