When a man craves wealth or fame, he should reason thus: "If I have such a strong desire for things that are ephemeral, how much stronger should be my desire for God, who is eternal and the source of everlasting joy?"
"A peculiar anthologic maze, an amusing literary chaos, a farrago of quotations, a mere olla podrida of quaintness, a pot pourri of pleasant delites, a florilegium of elegant extracts, a tangled fardel of old-world flowers of thought, a faggot of odd fancies, quips, facetiae, loosely tied" (Holbrook Jackson, Anatomy of Bibliomania) by a "laudator temporis acti," a "praiser of time past" (Horace, Ars Poetica 173).
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Saturday, July 24, 2004
Desire
Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev (1740-1810), quoted by Harry M. Rabinowicz, Hasidism: The Movement and Its Masters (Northvale: Jason Aronson, 1988), p. 67: