Elie Wiesel Quotes

I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.

Pain is essential. Often I cannot avoid it.Therefore all one can do is redeem it; and the only way to redeem it is through literature, art, poetry, music.

I don't think I should accept other people's suffering because I suffered. Just the opposite, because I suffered I don't want others to suffer.

[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.

I belong to a tradition that believes that the death of a single child is a blemish on creation.

Worse still is that mankind - the non-Jewish world - learned nothing from the Holocaust: The event which had no precedent in history, which should be equal to the Revelation at Sinai in significance.

Warmed-over loves and soups are generally not recommended.

I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it.

God made (human beings) because he loves stories.

I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.

Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

In my little town, Sighet, which is in Romania, Hungary-Romania, but a real shtetl, a little [Jewish] village - and we began with the Chumash [Pentateuch], probably at age four.

Man walks the moon but his soul remains riveted to earth. Once upon a time it was the opposite.

I do not believe in collective guilt.

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

I'm not a political person. I usually beware of political persons. I know many, but I'm not one of them. I have no political ambitions.

Bread, soup - these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.

It's easier to be conformist naturally; it's easier except for those who don't like conformism.

What is man? Ally of God or simply his toy? His triumph or his fall?

The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria.

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.

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

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.

Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate - healthy virile hate - for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.

Memory feeds a culture, nourishes hope and makes a human, human.

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

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.

We must choose between the violence of adults and the smiles of children.

You take a text, you explore it, you enter it with all your heart and all your mind.

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

You're at the bottom of the mountain. May you climb up without suffering.

There are real people behind the [Bible] stories.

For the purpose of my life, I don't ask the question. First of all, I believe. I think the Five Books of Moses are inspired. Call it divine. I don't know. But I would certainly call it inspired.

Simply because, one hand, there are the haters, The hater has power. All we can do is oppose it, or one becomes an accomplice.

I imagine, like all his predecessors, Barak Obama would like to achieve greatness in bringing peace in the Middle East. I hope it will not be at the expense of Israel.

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

From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.

The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes.

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.

Only the guilty are guilty: the children of killers are not killers, but children.

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

What would the future of man be if it were devoid of memory?

What is Scripture? The Hebrew word is torah. Torah means teaching, learning.

The danger lies in forgetting.

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

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

The primary task of a Jew in turbulent times is to be Jewish.

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

I am much more afraid of my good deeds that please me than of my bad deeds that repel me.

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.