Ahad HaAm, pen name, born Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg

What is national freedom if not a people's inner freedom to cultivate its abilities along the beaten path of its history?

There is only one object... for which we have at present the strength... and that is the moral object -the emancipation of ourselves from the inner slavery and spiritual degradation which assimilation has produced within us.

Our greatest need is emancipation from self-contempt.

Learning - learning - learning: that is the secret of Jewish survival.

Wise men weigh the advantages of any course of action against its drawbacks, and move not an inch until they can see what the result of their action will be; but while they are deep in thought, the men with self-confidence ‘come and see and conquer.’

Whoever sets out to persuade men to accept a new idea, or one which seems to be new, not just as an idea, but as a truth that is felt, should know beforehand that the human mind is not a blank sheet, on which one an write with ease, and should not therefore grieve or despair when he finds that people do not pay attention to him.