People are united by questions. It is the answers that divide them.
—Elie Wiesel
I rarely speak about God. To God, yes. I protest against Him. I shout at Him. But to open a 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
Topics: God
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.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Judaism, Religion, Jews
Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Obligation
Man walks the moon but his soul remains riveted to earth. Once upon a time it was the opposite.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Dreams
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
Topics: Indifference, Apathy
No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Thankfulness
That is my major preoccupation—memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Memory
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
—Elie Wiesel
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Despair
What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It’s close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.
—Elie Wiesel
If the only prayer you say throughout your life is “Thank You,” then that will be enough.
—Elie Wiesel
I don’t believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Mistakes
Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Children
Some stories are true that never happened.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Imagination
There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.
—Elie Wiesel
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.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Decision
There is divine beauty in learning, just as there is human beauty in tolerance. To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Learning, Tolerance, Reading, Humanity
Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Gifts, Peace
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
I believe that all the survivors are mad. One time or another their madness will explode. You cannot absorb that much madness and not be influenced by it. That is why the children of survivors are so tragic. I see them in school. They don’t know how.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Survival
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Hope
Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.
—Elie Wiesel
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Friendship
Man, as long as he lives, is immortal. One minute before his death he shall be immortal. But one minute later, God wins.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Immortality
When you see the abyss, and we have looked into it, then what? There isn’t much room at the edge—one person, another, not many. If you are there, others cannot be there. If you are there, you become a protective wall. What happens? You become part of t.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Knowledge
There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don’t see them.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Authors & Writing
I have one request:
may I never use my reason against truth.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Wisdom
Nobody is stronger, nobody is weaker than someone who came back. There is nothing you can do to such a person because whatever you could do is less than what has already been done to him. We have already paid the price.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Survival
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.
—Elie Wiesel
Topics: Racism, Race
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Isaac Bashevis Singer Polish-born American Children’s Books Writer
- Isaac Asimov American Novelist, Critic, Popular Scientist
- Jane Addams American Social Reformer
- E. L. Doctorow American Novelist
- Gertrude Stein American Writer
- Russell Hoban American Author
- Henry Kissinger American Diplomat
- Jimmy Carter American Head of State
- William H. Gass American Novelist
- Louise Erdrich American Author
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