The sages loved short sayings that carried a whole theology in a line. Here are a handful gathered from rabbinic tradition.
Cold water morning and evening is better than all the cosmetics in the world. Plain living cleans a face no ointment can match.
The question is asked: why is a man born with his hands clenched into fists, but lies in death with his hands open? Because on the way into the world a man wants to grasp everything; on the way out he carries nothing.
Two dry logs and one wet — the dry ones will kindle the wet. A student with fire can light the one who is slow to catch.
The man who searches for a brother without faults will end his life without a brother. Find the fault and stay anyway.
A town without a school should be abolished. Jerusalem itself was destroyed because the education of the young was neglected. The one who teaches a child, the rabbis said, is as if he created the child a second time. Teachers are the guardians of the state — not its generals.
Learn first, philosophize afterward. The order is not negotiable.
To what shall we compare the one who teaches a child? To one who writes on clean paper. And the one who teaches the old? To one who writes on paper already smudged. Both are honorable. The first is simply easier.
Be eager to acquire knowledge. It does not come to you by inheritance.
Wisdom is not what you will pass down — it is what you will earn, morning by morning, with your own two hands.