quotes by Elie Wiesel

"The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference."
— Elie Wiesel

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."
— Elie Wiesel

"We must always take sides. Neutality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
— Elie Wiesel

"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."
— Elie Wiesel

"There is divine beauty in learning... 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

""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 (Night)

"One person of integrity can make a difference."
— 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

""for the dead and the living, we must bear witness." "
— Elie Wiesel

"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."
— Elie Wiesel

"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing."
— Elie Wiesel

"Which is worse? Killing with hate or killing without hate?"
— Elie Wiesel

" "Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.""
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

"I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions."
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

"To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time."
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

"Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere."
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.
"
— Elie Wiesel

"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.
"
— Elie Wiesel

"For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences."
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

"Only the guilty are guilty. Their children are not."
— Elie Wiesel

"[Moishe:] explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer....
'And why do you pray, Moishe?' I asked him.
'I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions.'"
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

"God is God because he remembers."
— Elie Wiesel

"Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself."
— Elie Wiesel

"He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer."
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

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

"I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?"
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

"It was like a page torn from a history book, from some historicalnovel about the captivity of babylon or Spanish Inquisition"
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

"I've been fightingn my entire adult life for men and women everywhere to be equal and to be different. But there is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent."
— Elie Wiesel

"I was inspired by the marvelous example of Giacometti, the great sculptor. He always said that his dream was to do a bust so small that it could enter a matchbook, but so heavy that no one could lift it. That's what a good book should be. "
— Elie Wiesel

"Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty."
— Elie Wiesel

"When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity."
— Elie Wiesel

"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
— Elie Wiesel

"Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night…Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never."
— Elie Wiesel (Night)

"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. 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."
— Elie Wiesel (The Night Trilogy: Night, Dawn, The Accident)

"You’re shaking … so am I. It’s because of Jerusalem, isn’t it? One doesn’t go to Jerusalem, one returns to it. That’s one of its mysteries."
— Elie Wiesel (A Begger in Jerusalem)

"Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.

"
— 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.

(Oct. 1986) "
— Elie Wiesel

"We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented."
— Elie Wiesel