A garland of proverbs preserved in rabbinic tradition, each short enough to carry in a pocket and long enough to last a lifetime.
Unhappy is the one who mistakes the branch for the tree, the shadow for the substance. Your yesterday is your past; your today is your future; your tomorrow is a secret. The best preacher is the heart; the best teacher is time; the best book is the world; the best friend is God.
Life is only a loan to a human being. Death is the creditor who will one day claim it back. Understand a man by his own deeds and words; the impressions of others lead to false judgment. The one through whose agency another has been falsely punished stands outside the gates of Heaven.
The sins of the bad-tempered outweigh their merits. The man who sins is a fool as well as wicked. The good deeds we perform in this world take form and meet us in the world to come. Better to bear a false accusation in silence than to speak and bring the guilty to public shame.
The one who can feel ashamed will not easily do wrong. There is a great difference between being ashamed before your own soul and being ashamed before your fellow. God's covenant with us includes work — the command, "Six days shall you labor and the seventh you shall rest" (Exodus 20:9-10), makes rest conditional on work. God first told Adam to dress the Garden of Eden and keep it (Genesis 2:15), and only then permitted him to eat its fruit. God did not dwell in the midst of Israel until they worked to deserve His presence: "Let them make Me a sanctuary, and I will dwell in their midst" (Exodus 25:8). Rest is a reward; dwelling is earned; shame is a fence around the soul.