The quotation does not appear on the list of literary genres. Is it because a quotation is short? Well, perhaps it lacks the autonomy of other genres since it is often taken from a larger text. In any case, it is an injustice. The quotation is not only the synthesis of a thought, but the expression of an era. There is no proof that Galileo Galilei (1564–1643) said “eppur si muove,” but this simple sentence is a turning point: it’s not just the Earth that moves, it’s also history, and in moving it leaves behind all medieval tradition. If it wasn’t Galileo who said it, it was the age.
Collecting quotations is an art. In the case of Jewish quotations, it’s an art made complex by their abundance: the Bible alone is an inexhaustible source. The Dictionary of Quotations from the Bible (Margareth Miner & Ruth Rawson, eds., New York, Signet, 1990) has about three thousand quotations; Bible Wisdom for Modern Living (David Brown, ed., New York, Simon and Schuster, 1986), has about seven thousand. Although these are works prepared by people with religious fervor for similarly inclined readers, no serious book of quotations fails to reserve several pages for the Old and New Testaments. Hundreds of quotations missing here. “Let there be light.” “It is not good that man should be alone.” “Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found wanting.” “O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.” “Consider the lilies of the field.” “For many are called, but few are chosen!” “My name is Legion.”
And then there’s the Talmud, and the humorous anecdotes, and the numerous writers… In short, an extremely difficult selection, especially if one does not want an exhaustive collection, much less a definitive one.
A word must be said about the organizational criterion used here. Books of quotations have a certain audience: politicians, businesspeople, speakers, people who use them when they need to talk about a specific topic. Consequently, the works are organized by subject and are limited to the quotation itself, at most accompanied by a small note. My preference is for historical criteria: phrases (or verses, or anecdotes, or book titles, or expressions) that marked an era. There is a brief explanation of authors and contexts, in which other quotations may appear by, in most cases, free, association.
What we have, then, is a collection of voices that, echoing through the centuries, mark the trajectory of a unique human group; voices, often dissonant, that speak of glory and suffering, persecution and achievement. This is a personal choice, not only of the writer, but also of the boy from the Jewish neighborhood of Bom Fim, in Porto Alegre, who heard or read these words, and was at times amused, at times impressed, but always deeply moved.
