Elie Wiesel Quotes - Page 5

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Oh, it is not death that frightens me, but the impossibility of imparting some meaning to my past.

The most important question a human being has to face... What is it? The question, Why are we here?

The sincere Christian knows that what died in Auschwitz was not the Jewish people but Christianity.

I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake.

Whenever an angel says "Be not afraid!" you'd better start worrying. A big assignment is on the way.

I was 15, not 14, when I was inside there [Auschwitz], 15, and for me both were actually a surprise.

Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.

Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone - and, ultimately, hating himself or herself.

Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.

The Holocaust is not a cheap soap opera. The Holocaust is not a romantic novel. It is something else.

I would like to see real peace and a state of Israel living peacefully alongside a state of Palestine.

We still are looking for someone who knows the secret of immortality. Only God is immortal; we are not.

Every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them.

The deeper the nostalgia and the more complete the fear, the purer, the richer the word and the secret.

There is not anti-semitism as an ideology. The civilized world must think that anti-semitism is stupid.

Anything you want to say about God you better make sure you can say in front of a pit of burning babies.

For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.

When I say it doesn't make much difference, I mean in terms of the importance of the piece of literature.

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done... one person of integrity can make a difference.

Will you join me in hearing the case for keeping weapons from those who preach death to Israel and America?

I don't know much about politics, and I don't want to know. That's why I rarely involve myself in politics.

Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.

A holy war is a contradiction in terms. War dehumanizes, war diminishes, war debases all those who wage it.

Once upon a time refugee meant somebody who has a refuge, found a place, a haven where he could find refuge.

[Tibet] is a small country based on religious principle, religious traditions. It never wanted any conquest.

Gratitude is a word that I cherish. Gratitude is what defines the happiness and humanity of the human being.

I wrote my first book, I published it in 1955, it was in Yiddish and it was called And The World Was Silent.

I come from a tradition - from the Jewish tradition, which believes in words, in language, in communication.

He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer.

Even if people tell me they have historical proof [that it is not historical], that doesn't really bother me.

If you ask me what I want to achieve, it's to create an awareness, which is already the beginning of teaching.

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

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?

A man who is fighting for the future of mankind is not waiting for torture, he's waiting for -- the Revolution.

My ambition really was, even as a child, to be a writer, a commentator, and a teacher, but a teacher of Talmud.

We didn't really differ [with Frank Moore Cross] because we have the same love of the text. We share that love.

It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself.

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

It was the beginning of the war. I was twelve years old, my parents were alive, and God still dwelt in our town.

Except that a human being is both the public and the private. We are both, private and public in the same person.

It takes more than a few generations to change a human nation. Those who are intent to bring (change) will do so.

Politicians, they give the visible aspect of the change, but the change, the root, the anchor are in young people.

Abraham is trying to obey God, but not to kill. I feel that moment is one of the defining moments of Jewish faith.

I developed an anger at [Moses] Mendelssohn. Later, I read the book. I realized there was nothing subversive in it.

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

Sometimes I think I prefer the storyteller in [Roman Vishniac] to the photographer. But aren't they one and the same?

I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.

When has religion ever been unifying? Religion has introduced many wars in this world, enough bloodshed and violence.

I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it . . .

All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them. No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior.

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