Elie Wiesel

“And I, the for­mer mys­tic, was think­ing: Yes, man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve de­ceived You, You chased them from par­adise. When You were dis­pleased by Noah’s generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your fa­vour, You caused the heav­ens to rain down fire and damna­tion. But look at these men whom You have be­trayed, al­low­ing them to be tortured, slaugh­tered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray be­fore You! They praise Your name!”

“Usu­al­ly, very ear­ly in the morn­ing. Ger­man la­bor­ers were go­ing to work. They would stop and look at us with­out sur­prise. One day when we had come to a stop, a work­er took a piece of bread out of his bag and threw it in­to a wag­on. There was a stam­pede. Dozens of starv­ing men fought des­per­ate­ly over a few crumbs. The work­er watched the spec­ta­cle with great interest. Years later, I witnessed a sim­ilar spec­ta­cle in Aden. Our ship’s pas­sen­gers amused them­selves by throw­ing coins to the “natives,” who dove to retrieve them. An el­egant Parisian la­dy took great plea­sure in this game. When I no­ticed two chil­dren des­perate­ly fighting in the wa­ter, one try­ing to stran­gle the oth­er, I implored the la­dy: “Please, don’t throw any more coins!” “Why not?” said she. “I like to give char­ity…”

“I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.”

“...I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.”

“It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings--his last hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again...When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse.”

“To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice”

“Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.”

“We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.”

“In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.”

“It is obvious that the war which Hitler and his accomplices waged was a war not only against Jewish men, women, and children, but also against Jewish religion, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, therefore Jewish memory.”

“Musíme se vzbouřit proti bohům a říkat: "Chcete mi odepřít štěstí? Tak dobře, ukousnu si ho pořádné sousto!" To je tváří v tvář utrpení jediná platná odpověď.”

“A word is worth a thousand pictures.”

“Man prefers to blame himself for all possible sins and crimes rather than come to the conclusion that God is capable of the most flagrant injustice. I still blush every time I think of the way God makes fun of human beings, his favorite toys.”

“We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything--death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.”

“I learned that man lives differently, depending on whether he is in a horizontal or vertical position. The shadows on the walls, on the faces, are not the same.”

“Suffering pulls us farther away from other human beings. It builds a wall made of cries and contempt to separate us.”

“Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death.”

“The sky is so close to the sea that it is difficult to tell which is reflected in the other, which one needs the other, which one is dominating the other.”

“Everybody around us was weeping. Someone began to recite Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I don't know whether, during the history of the Jewish people, men have ever before recited Kaddish for themselves.”

“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?”

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

“Better that 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.”

“Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.”

“The Red Army is advancing with giant strides . . . Hitler will not be able to harm us, even if he wants to . . .”

“Listen to me, kid. Don't forget that you are in a concentration camp. In this place, it is every many for himself, and you cannot think of others. Not even you father. In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. Let me give you good advice: stop giving your ration of bread and soup to your old father. You cannot help him anymore. And you are hurting yourself. In fact, you should be getting his rations...”

“I write to understand as much as to be understood.”

“I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.”

“There are so many who know more than I do, who understand the world better than I do. I would be truly learned, a great scholar, if only I could retain everything I've learned from those I have known. But then would I still be me? And isn't all that only words? Words grow old, too; they change their meaning and their usage. They get sick just as we do; they die of their wounds and then they are relegated to the dust of dictionaries. And where am I in all this?”

“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.”

“Peace is our gift to each other.”

“Think higher, feel deeper.”

“Remember also that it is not knowledge but the yearning for knowledge that makes for a complete, accomplished man. Such a man does not stand still but perseveres in the face of adversity, nor does he remain untouched by the pain cause by absence. On the contrary, he recognizes himself in each cry, uttered or repressed, in the smallest rift, in the most pressing need.”

“Only fanatics — in religion as well as in politics — can find a meaning in someone else’s death.”

“Man’s strength resides in his capacity and desire to elevate himself, so as to attain the good. To travel step by step toward the heights. And that is all he can do. To reach heaven and remain there is beyond his powers: Even Moses had to return to earth. Is it the same for evil?”

“Just as there are predatory birds, so there are predatory ideas: I came under their spell. . . .Just as the survivors say that no one will ever understand the victims, what I must tell you is that you will never understand the executioners.”

“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?”

“How can one explain the attraction terror holds for some minds — and why for intellectuals? . . .In a totalitarian and terrorist regime, man is no longer a unique being with infinite possibilities and limitless choices but a number, a puppet, with just this difference — numbers and puppets are not susceptible to fear.”

“Which is better, truth that is a lie or the lie that is truth?”

“Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.”

“The more you ask certain questions, the more dangerous they become.”

“Each man was his own executioner and his own victim.”

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

“Not all games are innocent. Some come dangerously close to cruelty.”

“Certain things, certain events, seem inexplicable only for a time: up to the moment when the veil is torn aside.”

“You shouldn’t act as a spokesperson for someone who’s trying to impose his will on you.”

“Humanity would never tolerate it”

“One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live.”

“I have tried to keep memory alive... I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.”

“Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.”

“When you listen to a witness, you become a witness.”