Nachman of Breslov

“ Understand and see the very truth. Turn away from crookedness of heart, from the paths of scoffing and falsehood. Keep far from vain sophistication. Take pity on your soul and direct your understanding and your thoughts to the truth alone. For if you stray from the truth, who will you be deceiving? ”

“ Some have fallen in the category of sleep through cravings and bad deeds. And some are kosher, decent people, except that their downfall is from eating. Because sometimes when a person eats a food that isn't refined to the level of Man's food, it causes his mind to fall in a kind of sleep. For when you eat in a sanctified way, food that is pure, it lights up your face, meaning your intellect. But when someone's eating is not sanctified then the food brings evil upon his heart causing the loss of this face and intellect, and he falls into a kind of sleep. ”

“ Repair of one's speech comes by learning Torah in poverty and under pressure when it's hard for a man. By this a cord of Chesed, kindness, is drawn to him, and drives away all the accusers and all Sitra d'Msaeva, Side of Filth, and this repairs his speech and raises it to its source. Then his speech comes out in song, praise and rejoicing to the Holy Blessed One, for being privileged to pray, to thank and to extol His Blessed Name, and this allows him to speak to his Creator with ardent flames as he excites himself in serving Hashem Yitbarakh. ”

“ Regarding those questions that trouble people, such as how can God be omniscient if we have Bechira, free will - know that the human mind is unable to understand this Omniscience, for this Sekhel, intellect, is the realm of Makif, "the surrounding lights;" it's so transcendent that the mind cannot bear it and it can't enter the mind except just encircle it from outside. ”

“ Without engaging in the Torah it's impossible to live. At times a person is passionate for Hashem but it's so excessive he could burn up entirely due to such excess passion, God forbid. But being engaged in Torah cools the flame of passion so it's in proper measure and he can endure. The same goes for the opposite when God forbid sometimes a person burns for worldly lusts so much that the enormous heat burning for these cravings could engulf his whole body, God forbid - but when he learns Torah it protects him and saves him, putting out the fire burning in him and thus he can live. ”

“ Because when you're happy your mind is at ease and you can lead your Moach, brain, like you want to, and think about about your eternal purpose. But melancholy and sadness drive the Moach and Daat into exile so a person's mind cannot be made up. So sadness is a most severe obstacle to serving Hashem Yitbarakh (Ibid.) .
50. Whoever has a perfect Daat knows that all the time in the world is nothing at all. Because time is essentially due to lack of knowledge. But the more you grow your Sekhel, mind, the more you see and understand time is nothing. ”

“ A person needs to accustom himself to talk with his Creator with such honesty, until it truly awakens his heart, until he starts speaking with the heat of his heart the words of truth that are in his heart with excitement for Teshuvah, until he sees his lowliness and the greatness of the Creator, until he's utterly bashful before His Blessedness. ”

“ Arrogance is a type of idolatry. Arrogance makes a person unable to open his mouth. He lacks the faculty of speech and is unable to speak words that shine. And when words of Torah enter his mouth, not only do the words themselves fail to shine in him and draw him to improve, worse still, the Torah itself becomes coarsened and dimmed from his mouth (11:2) .
10. Arrogance and sexual immorality are connected. A person who succeeds in resisting temptation and extricating himself from pride will attain the light that will illumine his path to repentance. ”

“ There are cases where people are riddled with doubts about the holy faith because they were not conceived in holiness. And some people have made this worse by their own misdeeds, for there are transgressions that cause a person to have doubts. For all of this, one needs to feel shame and to have a "broken heart," for whoever has doubts like this, God forbid, against the holy faith, ought to be very, very ashamed for causing this by his transgressions. But the shame and a "broken heart" will drive out and break the doubts. ”

“ Because definitely if he had total faith, he would believe Hashem Yitbarakh stands over him, hears every word coming out of his mouth and listens to the voice of his prayer; he would definitely pray properly, with enthusiasm and aspiration. Just the main thing that confuses people to not pray is a lack of faith. Similarly, when people do not go and follow Tzaddikim and the pious, and do not serve Hashem in truth – it is all due to a lack of faith, which makes him lazy, sad and heavy. But when he has complete faith, nothing can hold him back. ”

“ Faith has an enormous power. Through faith and simplicity alone, with no sophistication whatsoever, you can reach the level of Ratzon (Desire) which is beyond even that of the Wisdom of Holiness (Chokhmah d'Kedushah) . That is, your desire for Hashem Yitbarakh will be so extraordinarily strong with such a rapid yearning that you simply do not know what to do because of the great longing and you cry out with yearning (Ibid. 32) . ”

“ For the passion of the heart is generated due to movement of the intellect, therefore when a person contemplates Torah and devotion, thereby his heart burns for Hashem Yitbarakh, and the more he grows his Daat and moves his mind within holiness, the more his heart heats up and burns. ”

“ That is why one has to be so careful to guard his mind and not allow any foreign thinking to enter in. And it's the key to repentance and repairing all his sins - when he makes a determined effort to expel and keep out all foreign thoughts from his mind. Because the Sekhel is the Neshama, soul, so sanctifying his mind is sanctifying his soul, and this is the way to lift his soul higher and bring back everything to its source. ”

“ Meaning, one should never let himself be diverted from his Torah study, prayer or devotions because of worries or toil for sustenance; just engage in Torah and devotions and trust in Hashem Yitbarakh that He will sustain him every day of his life. And if he's not on the level of this kind of Bitachon, to withdraw entirely from worldly matters, and he wants to engage in a trade or craft, nevertheless let him fix a time for Torah and pray at appropriate times and carry out all his other religious obligations. He should not allow himself to be pushed off course by worries about earning a living. ”

“ It is proper for a man to visit all the holy places of the Torah during his time in this world. That is, he should learn all the holy books of the Torah: Torah, Neviim, Ketuvim, the Shas, and all the Poskim, Rishonim and Achronim, and all the books of the Zohar Hakadosh, all the Midrashim, the writings of the Arizal, and all the other holy books. In order that in the Coming World he will be able to boast that he was in all the places of the holy Torah. Don't be put off and say it's too hard and burdensome to learn all the sefarim, because really you don’t have to finish them in one day. ”

“ Wherever a person’s thoughts are, that is where his whole being is. So a person needs to totally run away from bad thoughts, in order to not acquire his place there, God forbid. He must force himself to think good thoughts, in order that he merits to get to know Hashem Yitbarakh, and then he's actually there; he's merged with His Blessedness! The more he knows (God) the more he becomes merged with Him, and he attains everlasting life, merits perfection of the Daat, and is delivered from lack of anything, as mentioned (Ibid. 11) . ”

“ Whoever has faith lives life; but someone without faith, God forbid, has no life at all. There is nobody who doesn't go thorough many troubles - incidents and hardships - for (Job. 5:7) "Man was born to struggle." But when he has faith then even when troubles and hardships come, God forbid, he can give himself comfort and vitality, that Hashem Yitbarakh loves him and means everything for his ultimate good, and that the hardships are for his benefit and atonement: for everything that Hashem does is for the best. ”

“ The essence of Teshuvah is through Bushah. Because a person needs to be very, very bashful. For, a transgression is definitely an enormous shame, God forbid, for sin is not pertinent or appropriate for Yisrael at all, for the Ish Yisraeli at his root is entirely far from sin, so it's definitely unseemely for Ish Yisraeli to sin; but even when he wants to do a mitzvah - it's proper for him to also have great Bushah, for what merit does he have that he should be privileged to do the mitzvah?! ”

“ When a person toils in Torah until he succeeds in knowing and understanding it, through this he heals his soul, he elevates it to its root, he sweetens all the judgements, and he plants a "tree of life" on high that has the power to heal. ”

“ Wantonness can cause breaks in breathing, which is the Neshama, which is the root of a person's vitality. This allows the bodily fluids to dry, which results in damage to the brain and the mind, because mental life depends on the fluids and fats in the body. This is why all forms of madness are caused fundamentally by sexual desire, as is known. Even other people that are not actually insane but who are very mentally feeble or confused, it's all because of wantonness, as it dries out the fluids and fats in the body, spoiling the intellect as mentioned (Ibid.) ”

“ Falsehood is evil and corrupt. A person who is false tosses Hashem Yitbarakh's protective care from himself. But a person who is truthful will enjoy God's care and protection in all ways (Ibid.) .
25. There is only one truth but a whole multitude of lies. You can only say one truth about any given object — just what it is and nothing else. Silver is silver and only silver. Gold is gold and only gold. But lies can be multiplied without end. ”

“ When people lack absolute faith, many of them fall into misguided thinking of making the [physical] means obligatory between themselves and Hashem Yitbarakh. That is, they believe in Hashem Yitbarakh, but they believe also in the means and they think those means are obligatory. For example they put their faith in their means of livelihood, that it's the commerce, thinking that the commerce is the essential thing — as if God forbid without it Hashem Yitbarakh would have no other means of providing them with their sustenance. ”

“ One who always wants to be victorious is intolerant of truth. The truth may be staring him in the face, but because he is determined to win he rejects it. So if you want the real truth you must rid yourself of the urge to win. Then you will be able to see the truth if you really want it (122) .
34. Faith contains the power of growth; faith is the way to patience. That is, a person with perfect faith will grow and develop in serving His Blessedness no matter what he may have to go through, because no difficulty or obstacle will throw him off course. ”

“ Nobody should accept a position of leadership and authority unless he has attained the complete level of faith. Even someone who still has some trace of Amorite ways (superstition) such as "a deer crossed my path," even if he believes in Hashem Yitbarakh he should not become a leader. Even if someone is convinced he loves the world and claims this as his motive for leadership, really he is pursuing prestige and attributing his motive to love. ”

“ When your Chokhmah, englightenment, is lasting and complete, then you have the ability to subdue the the afflictors that pick on the weak stragglers among Yisrael and bring the latter into serving Hashem Yitbarakh and thereby attain a double amount of original Torah insights on Shabbat (Ibid.) .
46. The main bliss of the Coming World is thanking and praising His Blessedness's great Name and knowing and recognizing His Blessedness, which is what brings a person near to His Blessedness. For the more you recognize and know the Blessed One the closer you are to Him. ”

“ For every single day has its own thought, speech and action that's different from any other day's. And you need to know that Hashem Yitbarakh constructs his Divinity down from the Ein Sof, Infinite, down to the infinitesimal, down to the most concentrated points of the physical earth upon which a man stands, and brings each person such thought, speech and action according to the day and person and place, enveloping hints inside them in order to draw him to serve Him. ”

“ The more a person breaks his pride the more he attains Torah. Thereby he will have the power to draw those who are far toward Hashem Yitbarakh, whereby the Kavod, glory and presence, of Hashem Yitbarakh will be magnified and exalted and he raises the Kavod to its root and he attains Yir'ah, reverence. ”

“ The counsel of the True Tzaddikim and their students are the aspect of Tikkun haBrit (purity) , whereas the advices of their smooth-talking opposers inciting and repelling people away from the Point of Truth are the aspect of Pegam haBrit (damage to purity) , because the advice that someone gets from a person are like drops of intellect. Therefore whoever has damaged his Berit needs to be extremely careful to guard himself from the influence of these enemies of the truth - otherwise he could lose his eternal reward in an instant, God forbid (7:3) . ”

“ Words to revive all souls, from the smallest to the greatest, from the soul at the top of all levels to that at the very bottom. No holy word of advice is hidden from you that you will not find in this book. ”

“ The power of the Torah is strong enough to free a person from his sins. No matter how trapped he might be, God forbid, if he sets a fixed time and solid requirement to learn a certain amount every single day come what may, then he will manage to escape his evil past through the immense power of engagement in the holy Torah (Sichot Haran 19) . ”