When a human being kills an animal for food, he is neglecting his own hunger for justice.
In many ways, astrology, numerology and palmistry are corruptions of the occult because they have attempted to make a practice out of something that is essentially imaginative.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that practices like astrology, numerology, and palmistry distort the true essence of the occult by commercializing and trivializing imaginative concepts.
Isaac Bashevis Singer expresses a critical view of astrology, numerology, and palmistry, suggesting that these practices have taken elements of the occult, which are fundamentally imaginative and symbolic, and turned them into commercialized practices. This implies that true understanding of the occult requires depth and creativity, rather than superficial methods that aim to predict the future or provide answers. In essence, Singer cautions against reducing imaginative experiences to mere formulas or systems.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a debate about the validity of astrology in modern times.
More from Isaac Bashevis Singer
All quotes βThere will be no justice as long as man will stand with a knife or with a gun and destroy those who are weaker than he is.
Our knowledge is a little island in a great ocean of nonknowledge.
As long as people will shed the blood of innocent creatures there can be no peace, no liberty, no harmony between people. Slaughter and justice cannot dwell together.
Sometimes love is stronger than a man's convictions.
I did not become a vegetarian for my health, I did it for the health of the chickens.
Similar quotes
In thy face I see the map of honour, truth and loyalty.
There are three things in the world that deserve no mercy, hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny.
You might say, 'Can't we have a more human Christianity, without the cross, without Jesus, without stripping ourselves?' In this way we'd become pastry-shop Christians, like a pretty cake and nice sweet things. Pretty, but not true Christians.
All things must; man is the only creature that wills.
Black is real sensation, even if it is produced by entire absence of light. The sensation of black is distinctly different from the lack of all sensations.
Faith is never identical with piety.