Isaac Bashevis Singer Quotes

...the lesson of forever and ever is that knowing a man's mind ain't knowing the man.

It is never possible to understand completely any other human being; and no individual will ever really understand himself - the complexity is too great and there is not the time to constantly take things apart and examine them.

People are people, messy and mutable, combining differently with one another from day to day - even hour to hour.

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Every man is a volume if you know how to read him.

We are a complex species to observe.

Truth is, I'll never know all there is to know about you just as you will never know all there is to know about me. Humans are by nature too complicated to be understood fully. So, we can choose either to approach our fellow human beings with suspicion or to approach them with an open mind, a dash of optimism and a great deal of candour.

All persons are puzzles until at last we find in some word or act the key to the man, to the woman; straightway all their past words and actions lie in light before us.

Each human being is a more complex structure than any social system to which he belongs.

Do not make Mistakes about Character. That is the worst and yet easiest error. Better be cheated in the price than in the quality of goods. In dealing with men, more than with other things, it is necessary to look within. To know men is different from knowing things. It is profound philosophy to sound the depths of feeling and distinguish traits of character. Men must be studied as deeply as books.

The first thing you should know about people is that you don’t know the first thing about them.

Civilized people cannot fully satisfy their sexual instinct without love.

You can never be sure of anyone until you're close enough to see them clearly.

Every human being is a volume, worthy to be studied.

The truth is, you can never really know a man until you've loaned him money. And you can never know a woman until you've slept in her bed.

Men are never attached to you by favours.

No person can ever know everything that is in the heart of another. We are all Face Dancers in our souls.

Sometimes I think the human animal doesn't really need food or water to survive, only gossip.

If you think anyone is sane you just don't know enough about them.

I understand that we are actually complicated people but we are also dreadfully simple.

Nobody looks like what they really are on the inside. You don’t. I don’t. People are much more complicated than that. It’s true of everybody.

No man knows what he will do till the right temptation comes.

To make of human affairs a coherent, precise, predictable whole one must ignore or suppress man as he really is. It is by eliminating man from their equation that the makers of history can predict the future, and the writers of history can give a pattern to the past.

10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and the remaining 80 percent can be moved in either direction.