Judas Quotes

“The fact is that all the power in the world cannot transform someone who hates you into someone who likes you. It can turn a foe into a slave, but not into a friend. All the power in the world cannot transform a fanatic into an enlightened man. All the power in the world cannot transform someone thirsting for vengeance into a lover.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“Judaism and Christianity, and Islam too, all drip honeyed words of love and mercy so long as they do not have access to handcuffs, grills, dominion, torture chambers, and gallows. All these faiths, including those that have appeared in recent generations and continue to mesmerize adherents to this day, all arose to save us and all just as soon started to shed our blood.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“The real tragedy of humankind,’ Shealtiel used to say, ‘is not that the persecuted and enslaved crave to be liberated and to hold their heads high. No. The worst thing is that the enslaved secretly dream of enslaving their enslavers. The persecuted yearn to be persecutors. The slaves dream of being masters. As in the book of Esther.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“Almost everyone traverses their lifespan, from birth to death, with eyes closed. Even you and I, my dear Shmuel. With eyes closed. If we open our eyes for just a moment, a great and terrible cry will burst forth from us and we shall scream and never stop. And if we don’t cry out day and night, that’s a sign that our eyes are closed.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“Personally I do not believe in world reform. No. I do not believe in any kind of world reform. Not because I consider that the world is perfect as it is—certainly not, the world is crooked and grim and full of suffering—but whoever comes along to reform it soon sinks in rivers of blood. Now let’s drink a glass of tea and leave aside these obscenities you’ve brought me today. If only all religions and all revolutions vanished from the face of the earth someday, I tell you—all of them, without exception—there would be far fewer wars in the world. (p. 68)

Only in one window a feeble light glowed, and he pictured a young rabbinical student sitting there reciting psalms. He said to him in his heart: You and I are both searching for something that has no fixed measure. And for that reason we will not find it even if we search till morning and the next night and every night to come until the day of our death, and maybe after that. (p. 184)

“The eyes,” Gershom Wald said, “will never open. Almost everyone traverses their lifespan, from birth to death, with eyes closed. Even you and I, my dear Shmuel. With eyes closed. If we open our eyes for just a moment, a great and terrible cry will burst forth from us and we shall scream and never stop. And if we don’t cry out day and night, that’s a sign that our eyes are closed... ” (p. 192)

Anyone willing to change,” Shmuel said, “will always be considered a traitor by those who cannot change and are scared to death of change and don’t understand it and loathe change...” (p. 230)”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“Why should they love us?Why do you think the Arabs are not entitled to resist strangers who come here suddenly as if from another planet, and take away their land and their soil, fields, villages and towns, the graves of their ancestors and their children’s inheritance? We tell ourselves that we only came to this land “to build and be rebuilt”, “to renew our days of old”, “to redeem our ancestors heritage”, etcetera, but you tell me if there is any other people in this world who would welcome with open arms an incursion of hundreds of thousands of strangers, and then millions of strangers, landing from far away with the weird claim that their holy scripture, which they brought with them also from far away, promise this whole land to them and them alone.”
― Amos Oz, JUDAS

“La tragedia de los hombres, decía Shaltiel, no estriba en que los perseguidos y los oprimidos aspiren a liberarse y a hacerse respetar. No. La maldad está en que los oprimidos, en lo más profundo de sus corazones, realmente sueñan en convertirse en opresores de sus opresores. Los perseguidos anhelan ser perseguidores. Los siervos sueñan con ser amos.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“Blessed are the dreamers, and cursed be the man who opens their eyes. True, the dreamers cannot save us, neither they nor their disciples, but without dreams and without dreamers the curse that lies upon us would be seven times heavier. Thanks to the dreamers, maybe we who are awake are a little less ossified and desperate than we would be without them.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“Thomas Mann writes somewhere that hatred is simply love with a minus sign placed before it.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“Power has the power to prevent our annihilation for the time being. On condition that we always remember, at every moment, that in a situation like ours power can only prevent. It can’t settle anything and it can’t solve anything. It can only stave off disaster for a while.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“L'amore è una faccenda intima strana e piena di contraddizioni, visto che non di rado amiamo qualcuno solo perchè amiamo noi stessi, per egoismo, avidità, desiderio fisico, brama di dominare l'oggetto d'amore e asservirlo; o al contrario, per desiderio di asservirci e essere dominati dal nostro amante, e in fondo l'amore assomiglia all'odio e gli è più prossimo di quanto non si pensi normalmente.”
― Amos Oz, Giuda

“io, mio caro, non credo nell'amore universale. L'amore esiste in dosi modiche. Si possono amare forse cinque fra uomini e donne, dieci magari, talvolta financo quindici. E anche questo solo assai di rado. Ma se uno arriva e mi dice che ama tutto il Terzo mondo, o ama l'America Latina, o ama il sesso femminile, quello non è amore ma retorica. Pura demagogia. Slogan. Non siamo nati per amare più di una manciata di persone.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“We are all Judas. Even eighty generations later we are still Judas.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“The Jews here are actually a single big refugee camp, and so are the Arabs. And now the Arabs live day by day with the disaster of their defeat, and the Jews live night by night with the dread of their vengeance.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“Fundamentally, suspicion, enjoyment of persecution, and even hatred of the entire human race are all much less lethal than a love of humanity, which reeks of ancient rivers of blood. In my view, gratuitous hatred is less bad than gratuitous love.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“„Człowiek podejrzliwy z natury wystawiony jest na nieszczęście. Podejrzliwość jest jak kwas, trawi naczynie, w którym się znajduje, pożera tego, kto ją żywi: dniem i nocą strzec się całego rodzaju ludzkiego, nieustannie głowić się nad tym, jak uniknąć intryg i udaremnić spiski, jakiego użyć fortelu, żeby z daleka dostrzec zastawioną na niego sieć – to wszystko są korzenie wszelkiej szkody. To one nie dają człowiekowi żyć.”
― Amos Oz, Giuda

“Anyone willing to change,” Shmuel said, “will always be considered a traitor by those who cannot change and are scared to death of change and don’t understand it and loathe change.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“The worst thing is that the enslaved secretly dream of enslaving their enslavers. The persecuted yearn to be persecutors. The slaves dream of being masters. As in the book of Esther.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“The world is full of men who are attracted to women but aren’t really interested in them. Weak women sometimes give in to men like that. As it happens, I don’t need a man. I live alone. I work, I read books, and I listen to music. Sometimes I have a visitor in the evening. Sometimes on another evening I have a different visitor. They come and they go. I’m self-sufficient.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“lived. But his disciples were not dreamers. They were hungry for power, and in the end, like all those who hunger for power, they became shedders of blood.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“And yet, had it not been for Judas, there might not have been a crucifixion, and had there been no crucifixion, there would have been no Christianity.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“Even after she disappeared, it did not settle at once, but continued to make waves and produced a trickling, rustling sound that Shmuel hoped would not die away too soon.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“You've held the world in your hands for thousands of years and you've turned it into a horror show.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“The westerly breeze was light and silent, as if it had been sent to cool a glass of tea.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“Suspicion, like an acid, corrodes the vessel in which it is put and eats away at the suspicious man himself: guarding oneself day and night from the entire human race, constantly devising ways of avoiding evil schemes and conspiracies, and sniffing out snares laid for you-- this is what the Talmud calls 'primary categories of damages.' And these are the things that, as rabbis say, take a man out of the world.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“Nu ne-am născut să iubim mai mult de cîțiva oameni. Iubirea e un eveniment intim, ciudat şi plin de contradicții, căci nu o dată se întîmplă să iubim pe cineva din dragoste pentru noi înşine, din egoism, din cupiditate, din pasiunea trupească, din voința de a-l stăpîni pe cel iubit şi de a-l supune, sau invers, dintr-un fel de voluptate de a ne supune obiectului iubirii noastre, şi în general iubirea e foarte asemănătoare urii, şi mult mai apropiată ei decît pot concepe majoritatea oamenilor.”
― Amos Oz, Iuda

“Toate sentimentele mi se par inutile, făcînd ca lucrurile să se termine rău. Viața poate fi mult mai simplă dacă abolim emomțiile. Dar nu trebuie să te educ, Shmuel. Poate te mulțumești cu faptul că, în general, te tolerez într-o măsură mai mare sau mai mică, iar din cînd în cînd apar și momente ceva mai bune decît acesta.”
― Amos Oz, Iuda

“Not everybody can simply wake up one morning, brush his teeth, drink a cup of coffee and kill a god! To murder a deity you need to even stronger than the god as well as infinitely malicious and evil. Whoever murdered Jesus, a warm-hearted deity radiating love, he must have been stronger than he and also shrewd and abominable. Those accursed god-killers were only able to kill god on condition that they really possessed monstrous resources of strength and wickedness. And so that is indeed what the jews possess in the deepest recesses of the Jews-hater's imagination. We are all Judas. Even eighty generations later we are still Judas. But the truth, my young friend, the real truth, we can behold before our very eyes here in the land of Israel: the modern Jew who has sprung up here, just like his ancient predecessor, is neither strong nor malicious, but hedonistic, with an ostentatious of wisdom, boisterous, confused and consumed by suspicions and fear. Yes indeed. Chaim Weizmann once said, in a moment of despair, that there can never be such a thing as a Jewish state, because it contains an inbuilt contradiction: if it is a state it will not be Jewish, and if it is Jewish it will certainly not be a state.”
― Amos Oz, Judas

“with his legs apart, leaning on an old Czech rifle. He was smoking the dog end of a cigarette, and when he saw Shmuel and Atalia he spoke without removing it: “Closed. No entry.” “Why?” Atalia laughed. The soldier raised the cap slightly from one ear and replied: “Closed by order, lady. No entry.” “But we had no intention of going inside,” Atalia said, pulling Shmuel by the arm. Shmuel lingered and asked the soldier: “When does your watch finish?”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem

“I am not the lady’s husband. I do not have that honor and pleasure. Atalia is, in fact, my mistress.” He allowed a little time for Shmuel to wallow in his astonishment before deigning to explain: “I am not using the word in the vulgar sense, of course, but rather as in the famous saying of the first Queen Elizabeth of England: ‘I will have here but one mistress and no master.”
― Amos Oz, Judas: Prize-Winning Biblical Romance of Love, Betrayal, and Secrets in 1959 Jerusalem