Elie Wiesel Quotes - Page 17

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• Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.

  Elie Wiesel

  Holocaust, Tragedy, Answers

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.14, Macmillan

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• It was like a page torn from a history book, from some historical novel about the captivity of babylon or Spanish Inquisition.

  Elie Wiesel

  Book, Historical Novels, Captivity

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• Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

  Elie Wiesel

  Dream, Night, Dust

  Night ch. 3 (1960)

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• [Moishe] explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer.... And why do you pray, Moishe?' I asked him. I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions.

  Elie Wiesel

  Real, Answers, Praying

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• I was inspired by the marvelous example of Giacometti, the great sculptor. He always said that his dream was to do a bust so small that it could enter a matchbook, but so heavy that no one could lift it. That's what a good book should be.

  Elie Wiesel

  Dream, Book, Example

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• Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.

  Elie Wiesel

  Men, Meaning Of Life, Life Is

  Elie Wiesel (2007). “The Judges: A Novel”, p.54, Schocken

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• Each man was his own executioner and his own victim.

  Elie Wiesel

  Men, Victim, Executioners

  Elie Wiesel (2007). “The Judges: A Novel”, p.60, Schocken

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• But the forces of evil have not abdicated. The malevolent ghosts of hatred are resurgent with a fury and a boldness that are as astounding as they are nauseating: ethnic conflicts, religious riots, anti-Semitic incidents here, there, and everywhere. What is wrong with these morally degenerate people that they abuse their freedom, so recently won?

  Elie Wiesel

  Religious, People, Evil

  Elie Wiesel (2007). “The Judges: A Novel”, p.140, Schocken

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• In the beginning was belief, foolish belief, and faith, empty faith, and illusion, the terrible illusion. ... We believed in God, had faith in man, and lived with the illusion that in each one of us is a sacred spark from the fire of the shekinah, that each one carried in his eyes and in his soul the sign of God. This was the source—if not the cause—of all our misfortune.

  Elie Wiesel

  Eye, Men, Fire

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• From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.

  Elie Wiesel

  Eye, Night, Mirrors

  Elie Wiesel, Harry J. Cargas (1993). “Telling the tale: a tribute to Elie Wiesel on the occasion of his 65th birthday : essays, reflections, and poems”, Time Being Press

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• But because of his telling, many who did not believe have come to believe, and some who did not care have come to care. He tells the story, out of infinite pain, partly to honor the dead, but also to warn the living - to warn the living that it could happen again and that it must never happen again. Better than one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling, he has decided, if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all. (vi)

  Elie Wiesel

  Pain, Believe, Heart

  Elie Wiesel (1960). “Night”, Bantam

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• A disciple came to the celebrated Master of the Good Name with a question. “Rabbi, how are we to distinguish between a true master and a fake?” And the master of the good name said, “When you meet a person who poses as a master, ask him a question: whether he knows how to purify your thoughts. If he says that he knows, then he is a fake.

  Elie Wiesel

  Names, Fake, Masters

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• I am much more afraid of my good deeds that please me than of my bad deeds that repel me.

  Elie Wiesel

  Please Me, Deeds, Good Deeds

  Elie Wiesel (2013). “Souls on Fire”, p.49, Simon and Schuster

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• The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria.

  Elie Wiesel

  Today, World, Not Interested

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.54, Macmillan

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• Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness?

  Elie Wiesel

  Writing, Order, Mad

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.4, Macmillan

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• Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse.

  Elie Wiesel

  Littles, Violin, Next

  Elie Wiesel, Marion Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.134, Penguin UK

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• Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

  Elie Wiesel

  Yesterday, Tomorrow, Silent

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.11, Macmillan

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• In my lifetime I was to write only one book, this would be the one. Just as the past Lingers in the present, all my writings after night, including those that deal with biblical, Talmudic, or Hasidic themes, profoundly bear it's stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works. Why did I write it? Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of the madness, the immense, terrifying madness that had erupted in history and in the conscience of mankind?

  Elie Wiesel

  Book, Writing, Biblical

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.4, Hill and Wang

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• If life is not a celebration, why remember it ? If life --- mine or that of my fellow man --- is not an offering to the other, what are we doing on this earth?

  Elie Wiesel

  Men, Offering, Fellow Man

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Open Heart”, p.75, Schocken

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• Humanity? Humanity is not concerned with us. Today anything is allowed. Anything is possible.

  Elie Wiesel

  Humanity, Today, Concerned

  Elie Wiesel (1982). “Night”, New York, Bantam

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• And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.

  Elie Wiesel

  Action, Indifference, Danger

  Elie Wiesel (2012). “Night”, p.143, Macmillan

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• I have one request: may I never use my reason against truth.

  Elie Wiesel

  Education, Use, May

  Elie Wiesel (2013). “Souls on Fire”, p.49, Simon and Schuster

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• Only one enemy is worse than despair: indifference. In every area of human creativity, indifference is the enemy; indifference of evil is worse than evil, because it is also sterile.

  Elie Wiesel

  Creativity, Evil, Enemy

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• Every nation has its prestigious military academies - or so few of them - that reach not only the virtues of peace but also the art of attaining it? I mean attaining and protecting it by means other than weapons, the tools of war. Why are we surprised whenever war recedes and yields to peace?

  Elie Wiesel

  Art, Military, War

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• I rarely speak about God. To God yes. I protest against Him. I shout at Him. But open discourse about the qualities of God, about the problems that God imposes, theodicy, no. And yet He is there, in silence, in filigree.

  Elie Wiesel

  God, Silence, Quality

  Interview with John S. Friedman, The Paris Review, No. 91, Spring 1984.

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