The person who wishes to attain human perfection should study logic first, next mathematics, then physics, and, lastly, metaphysics.

— Maimonides

The physician should not treat the disease but the patient who is suffering from it

— Maimonides

The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.

— Maimonides

Transient bodies are only subject to destruction through their substance and not through their form, nor can the essence of their form be destroyed; in this respect, they are permanent.

— Maimonides

Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it.

— Maimonides

When the Rabbis stated that obedience or disobedience to the commandments depends not on the will of Hashem but on man’s free will, they echoed Jeremiah, who said, “Out of the mouth of the Most High there comes neither the bad nor the good” (Lamentations 3:38). By the bad he meant vice, and by the good he intended virtue, meaning that Hashem does not predetermine any person as bad or good. Since this is so, a person owes it to himself to mourn his sins and transgressions, since he has committed them of his own free will, as Jeremiah says, “For what should a living man mourn? Let every man mourn because of his sins” (Lamentations 3:39). Jeremiah answers his question positively, telling us that the remedy for our disease lies with us. Just as our failings stemmed from our own free will, so do we have the power to repent of our evil deeds.

— Maimonides

You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.

— Maimonides

Your purpose...should always be to know...the whole that was intended to be known.

— Maimonides

You should recognize that man’s soul, this single entity whose powers and parts we have described, may be compared to matter, and that the power of reasoning is its completed form. As long as the soul lies dormant and does not acquire its form from knowledge, then the nature of the soul is useless and exists in vain.

— Maimonides

You will certainly not doubt the necessity of studying astronomy and physics, if you are desirous of comprehending the relation between the world and Providence as it is in reality, and not according to imagination.

— Maimonides