Wiesel Quotes & Sayings

After trampling over many bodies and corpses, we succeeded in getting inside. We let ourselves fall to the ground. — Elie Wiesel

There is no discussing theology, sociology and politics when someone is under the spell of a self-enclosed totalitarian ideology. Intentionally or out of ignorance, Ahmed, who is empirical in all matters, detests pointless and laborious philosophical imaginings, never-ending discussions, or clashes of ideas that might be respectful of non-believer opponents and sinners deserving only of complete contempt. — Elie Wiesel

You know how many reasons we have to be desperate and despairing, the world is not learning anything. We have seen that. — Elie Wiesel

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. — Elie Wiesel

I looked up at my father's face, trying to glimpse a smile or something like it on his stricken face. But there was nothing. Not the shadow of an expression. Defeat. — Elie Wiesel

Every moment contains a spark of eternity. — Elie Wiesel

I have to be self-conscious of what I'm trying to do with my life. — Elie Wiesel

One person of integrity can make a difference. — Elie Wiesel

One can do without solutions. Only the questions matter. We may share them or turn away from them. — Elie Wiesel

This is the role of writers: to turn their tears into a story - and perhaps into a prayer. — Elie Wiesel

[Memory] is a passion no less powerful or pervasive than love. It is [the ability] to live in more than one world, to prevent the past from fading, and to call upon the future to illuminate it. — Elie Wiesel

I did not weep, and it pained me that i could not weep. But I had no more tears. And, in the depths of my being, in the recesses of my weakened conscience, could I have searched it, I might perhaps have found something like
free at last! — Elie Wiesel

True enemies aren't always the ones who hate each other. — Elie Wiesel

It was a destructive novel of acquired ideas. To finally wake up in a state of creative anguish, to lose oneself in order to find oneself again, to sleep in the arms of a beautiful student whose name one didn't know, to fall back to sleep over a love poem-that was called existence. The harmonics of artistic creation, of fertile sensibility, of anticipated events-history in movement-that was called a privilege. — Elie Wiesel

When did I learn the Bible? When I was four or five years old. It's still the pull of my childhood, a fascination with the vanished world, and I can find everything except that world. — Elie Wiesel

There are those who tell me that I survived in order to write this text. I am not convinced. I don't know how I survived; I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to save myself. A miracle? Certainly not. If heaven could or would perform a miracle for me, why not for others more deserving than myself? It was nothing more than chance. However, having survived, I needed to give some meaning to my survival. — Elie Wiesel

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

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

It is in man that God must be loved, because the love of God goes through the love of man. Whoever loves God exclusively, namely excluding man, reduces his love and his God to the level of abstraction. Beshtian Hasidism denies all abstraction. — Elie Wiesel

It is not always events that have touched us personally that affect us the most. — Elie Wiesel

Perhaps some day someone will explain how, on the level of man, Auschwitz was possible; but on the level of God, it will forever remain the most disturbing of mysteries. — Elie Wiesel

Are you forgetting that losing a game is an error or a lesson, but losing one's time is a sin? — Elie Wiesel

There's a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don't lose courage. You've already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now, muster your strength, and don't lose heart. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will keep death away from yourselves. Hell is not for eternity. And now, a prayer - or rather, a piece of advice: let there be comradeship among you. We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive. — Elie Wiesel

My faceless neighbor spoke up:
"Don't be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve."
I exploded:
"What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet?
His cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily:
"I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people. — Elie Wiesel

Humanity would never tolerate it — Elie Wiesel

And to write is to sow and to reap at the same time. — Elie Wiesel

As the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice. — Iris Chang

It all belonged to everyone since it no longer belonged to anyone. — Elie Wiesel

Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor - never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten. — Elie Wiesel

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

Human beings all change. Not what they are but who they are. We have the power to change what we do with our life and turn it into our destiny. — Elie Wiesel

Innate mechanisms endow the visual system with highly specific connections, but visual experience early in life is necessary for their maintenance and full development. Deprivation experiments demonstrate that neural connections can be modulated by environmental influences during a critical period of postnatal development. — Torsten Wiesel

No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has escaped the kingdom of night. — Elie Wiesel

What is being lost is the magic of the word. I am not an image person. Imagery belongs to another civilization: the caveman. Caveman couldn't express himself so he put images on walls. — Elie Wiesel

Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. Does that seem paradoxical? Well, war is not afraid of paradoxes. — Elie Wiesel

Holy War is a contradiction of terms ... — Elie Wiesel

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

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

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference. — Elie Wiesel

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

For one who is indifferent, life itself is a prison. Any sense of community is external or, even worse, nonexistent. Thus, indifference means solitude. Those who are indifferent do not see others. They feel nothing for others and are unconcerned with what might happen to them. They are surrounded by a great emptiness. Filled by it, in fact. They are devoid of all hope as well as imagination. In other words, devoid of any future. — Elie Wiesel

Men to the left! Women to the right!
Eight words spokern quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother. — Elie Wiesel

I remember, May 1944: I was 15-and-a-half, and I was thrown into a haunted universe where the story of the human adventure seemed to swing irrevocably between horror and malediction. — Elie Wiesel

Be careful in your relations with those in power; they draw you close or allow you to approach them only when they need you. They are your friends when your friendship is useful to them and affords them pleasure, but they forget you when you are in trouble.
Elie Wiesel quoting Rabban Gamliel — Elie Wiesel

Whoever came to see Rebbe Shmelke with outstretched palms left bearing a gift. one day, when he had not a single piece of change, he gave a beggar a ring he saw lying on the table. It belonged to his wife, who, when she heard the story, complained loudly: "How could you, didn't you know this was a valuable ring, a diamond ring?"
Whereupon Shmelke ran out of the house in pursuit of the beggar, shouting: "Friend, listen, that ring is valuable! Don't let the jeweler cheat you! You mustn't sell it too cheap! — Elie Wiesel

My anger rises up within faith and not outside it. — Elie Wiesel

It is true that not all the victims were Jews, but all the Jews were victims — Elie Wiesel

Torture is the act of making someone die a slow death, making the prisoner die several times. — Elie Wiesel

Even if I wrote on nothing else, it would never be enough, even if all the survivors did nothing but write about their experiences, it would still not be enough.
*Response when asked how much longer is he going to write about the Holocaust — Elie Wiesel

It used to be said that when the Baal Shem Tov came into a town, his impact was so strong, he didn't have to speak. His disciples had to dance or to sing or to preach to have the same effect. I think a real messenger, myself or anyone, by the very fact that he is there as a person, as a symbol, could have the same impact. — Elie Wiesel

Man asks and God replies but we don't understand his replies because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die. — Elie Wiesel

As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our life will be filled with anguish and shame. — Elie Wiesel

Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another. — Elie Wiesel

In retrospect I must confess that I do not know, or no longer know, what I wanted to achieve with my words. I only know that without this testimony, my life as a writer - or my life, period - would not have become what it is: that of a witness who believes he has a moral obligation to try to prevent the enemy from enjoying one last victory by allowing his crimes to be erased from human memory. — Elie Wiesel

Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write. — Elie Wiesel

When I began teaching you hardly could find a university in America or a college where they would teach either Jewish studies or Holocaust studies. — Elie Wiesel

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. — Elie Wiesel

Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings! the Hungarian police were screaming.
That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death. — Elie Wiesel

I make a difference between genocide and Holocaust. Holocaust was mainly Jewish, that was the only people, to the last Jew, sentenced to die for one reason, for being Jewish, that's all. Genocide is something else. Genocide has been actually codified by the United Nations. It's the intent of killing, the intent of killing people, a community in this culture so forth, but no other people has been really interested. — Elie Wiesel

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

Jews, listen to me,' she cried. I see a fire! I see flames, huge flames. — Elie Wiesel

Today again the teacher is the important thing, but on the other hand anti-Semitism is growing today. No doubt about it. All over the world, especially in Europe, and it's true they begin with anti-Israeli attitudes and then it's so strong that it runs over and becomes anti-Semitic. — Elie Wiesel

At the time of the liberation of the camps, I remember, we were convinced that after Auschwitz there would be no more wars, no more racism, no more hatred, no more anti-Semitism. We were wrong. This produced a feeling close to despair. For if Auschwitz could not cure mankind of racism, was there any chance of success ever? The fact is, the world has learned nothing. Otherwise, how is one to comprehend the atrocities committed in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia ... — Elie Wiesel

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

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

Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him. — Elie Wiesel

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

After my father's death, nothing could touch me any more. — Elie Wiesel

In this place, there is no such thing as father, brother, friend. Each of us lives and dies alone. — Elie Wiesel

Fanaticism is the greatest threat today. Literally, the 21st century threatened by fanatics, and we have fanatics in every religion, unfortunately, and what can we do against them? Words nothing else, I'm against violence but only words. — Elie Wiesel

Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair. — Elie Wiesel

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done ... one person of integrity can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs. — Elie Wiesel

Drawn to childhood, the old man will seek it in a thousand different ways. — Elie Wiesel

I cannot cure everybody. I cannot help everybody. But to tell the lonely person that I am not far or different from that lonely person, that I am with him or her, that's all I think we can do and we should do. — Elie Wiesel

So many crazed men, so many cries, so much bestial brutality. — Elie Wiesel

Indifference to me, is the epitome of all evil. — Elie Wiesel

A man hates his enemy because he hates his own hate. — Elie Wiesel

I have one request: may I never use my reason against truth. — Elie Wiesel

From Jeff Greenfield: "I once asked Elie Wiesel "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" "An optimist," he said. "I have to be. — Elie Wiesel

Beggars inspired me with mingled feelings of love and fear. I knew that I ought to be kind to them, for they might not be what they seemed. — Elie Wiesel

Often we feel the need to say that a book isn't just about a particular time or place but is about the human spirit. People say this of Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, or Night by Elie Wiesel, or A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. — Will Schwalbe

In 1983, I became the Vincent and Brook Astor Professor at The Rockefeller University, where I established a new Laboratory of Neurobiology and continued my close collaboration with Charles Gilbert on the circuitry of primary visual cortex. — Torsten Wiesel

Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out,
swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing ...
And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.
And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still
red, his eyes not yet extinguished.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where
hanging here from this gallows ... "
That night, the soup tasted of corpses. — Elie Wiesel

I describe incidents which may or may not have happened but which are true. — Elie Wiesel

All I could hear was the violin, and it was as if Juliek's soul had become his bow. He was playing his life. His whole being was gliding over the strings. His unfulfilled hopes. His charred past, his extinguished future. — Elie Wiesel

Whatever we thought was certain is no longer certain, and therefore in science probably certain things must be correct, but in human behaviour I am not so sure. — Elie Wiesel

If the only prayer you say throughout your life is "Thank You," then that will be enough. — Elie Wiesel

Not all games are innocent. Some come dangerously close to cruelty. — Elie Wiesel

The sins I regret the most are the one's I didn't commit. — Elie Wiesel

This is the bread of affliction which our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. Let all those who are hungry come and eat with us. Let all those who are in need come and share our meal. This year we are here. Next year may we all be in the land of Israel. — Elie Wiesel

Had the situation not been so tragic, we might have laughed. — Elie Wiesel

When you listen to a witness, you become a witness. — Elie Wiesel

Then he smiled. I shall always remember that smile. What world did it come from? Heavy snow continued to fall over the corpses. — Elie Wiesel

Only fanatics - in religion as well as in politics - can find a meaning in someone else's death. — Elie Wiesel

Because I survived, I must do everything possible to help others. — Elie Wiesel

A Jew must be sensitive to the pain of all human beings. A Jew cannot remain indifferent to human suffering ... The mission of the Jewish people has never been to make the world more Jewish, but to make it more human. — Elie Wiesel

To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time. SOMETIMES — Elie Wiesel

His eyes would suddenly go blank, leaving two gaping wounds, two wells of terror. — Elie Wiesel

I was the accuser, God the accused. — Elie Wiesel

Dawn is purely a work of fiction, but I wrote it to look at myself in a new way. Obviously I did not live this tale, but I was implicated in its ethical dilemma from the moment that I assumed my character's place. — Elie Wiesel