101 Famous Quotes by Elie Wiesel
Elie Wiesel was a Romanian-born Jewish writer and Holocaust survivor who became an influential voice for human rights and social justice. His memoir, "Night," chronicled his experiences as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps during World War II and has become a classic of Holocaust literature. Wiesel's advocacy work focused on issues such as genocide prevention, refugee rights, and interfaith dialogue. His life and work serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of standing up against hatred and oppression and fighting for the dignity and equality of all people. (Elie Wiesel Biography).
Elie Wiesel Famous Quotes
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. (Meaning)
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them. (Meaning)
Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future. (Meaning)
When language fails, violence becomes a language; (Meaning)
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing. (Meaning)
Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies. (Meaning)
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. (Meaning)
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings. (Meaning)
Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world. (Meaning)
Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone - and, ultimately, hating himself or herself. (Meaning)
Peace is our gift to each other. (Meaning)
Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories. (Meaning)
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win. (Meaning)
Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe. (Meaning)
Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life. (Meaning)
No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions. (Meaning)
When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude. (Meaning)
Not to transmit an experience is to betray it. (Meaning)
When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. (Meaning)
Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems. (Meaning)
Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds. (Meaning)
Language failed me very often, but then, the substitute for me was silence, but not violence. (Meaning)
Man, as long as he lives, is immortal. One minute before his death he shall be immortal. But one minute later, God wins. (Meaning)
What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander. (Meaning)
To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all. (Meaning)
Even in darkness it is possible to create light. (Meaning)
One person of integrity can make a difference. (Meaning)
Every moment is a new beginning. (Meaning)
Think higher, feel deeper. (Meaning)
I write to understand as much as to be understood. (Meaning)
Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere. (Meaning)
To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. (Meaning)
To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice (Meaning)
I don't want my past to become anyone else's future. (Meaning)
When adults wage war, children perish. (Meaning)
For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. (Meaning)
For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences. (Meaning)
Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil. (Meaning)
Questions outlive the answers. (Meaning)
The opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. (Meaning)
For me, every hour is grace. (Meaning)
A word is worth a thousand pictures. (Meaning)
Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. (Meaning)
every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer . . . (Meaning)
In Jewish history there are no coincidences. (Meaning)
My anger rises up within faith and not outside it. (Meaning)
Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse. (Meaning)
The opposite of faith is not heresy but indifference (Meaning)
And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all. (Meaning)
Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow. (Meaning)
Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him. (Meaning)
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.
Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.
When language fails, violence becomes a language; I never had that feeling.
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.
I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.
Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.
Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.R
I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it.
Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.
Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.
It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.
Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone - and, ultimately, hating himself or herself.
Peace is our gift to each other.
Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone - and, ultimately, hating himself or herself.
Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.
Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.
Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.
Some stories are true that never happened.
Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.
No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.
When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.
For me, every hour is grace.
When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.
Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.
That is my major preoccupation, memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it.
I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.
Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.
That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.
Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.
Language failed me very often, but then, the substitute for me was silence, but not violence.
Man, as long as he lives, is immortal. One minute before his death he shall be immortal. But one minute later, God wins.
Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments.
I will say, with memoir, you must be honest. You must be truthful.
I write to understand as much as to be understood.
I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.
In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone had his place. The killer came to kill, and the victims came to die.
I don't know much about politics, and I don't want to know. That's why I rarely involve myself in politics.
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
I never felt any attraction towards violence. I never tried to express myself through violence. Violence is a language.
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.
Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy to my heart. And it simply says, look, people have learned from history.
In Jewish history there are no coincidences.
― Elie Wiesel Quotes
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Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
