Witness Quotes

“Never allow anyone to be humiliated in your presence. Whatever has happened in the past, we must deal with those who are here now.”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie

“Whatever you learn, remember: the learning must make you more, not less, human.”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie

“If anything can, it is memory that will save humanity.”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie

“History is a narrow bridge. We are naturally afraid of our memories, of the trauma of our memories. We try to forget, and in truth, some things we must forget a little bit, simply in order to function. And yet . . . if we truly allow ourselves to forget, history may well return to us.”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie

“Forgetfulness leads to exile, memory to redemption.”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie

“Moral amnesia as invitation to murder.”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie

“When we come together to listen and learn from each other, there is hope. This is where human dignity begins, where peace begins, where dignity begins: in a small gesture of respect, in listening.”––Elie Wiesel”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel’s Classroom

“it is at the intersection of history and humanity, when we leave the script and step into the unknown, that powerful change can take place.”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie

“1990 I organized a conference that both Nelson Mandela and a minister from the de Klerk government attended. At the opening of the conference, the minister turned to Mandela and said, ‘Nelson, I grew up under apartheid. Now my fervent wish is to attend its funeral.’ This small human exchange launched a dialogue that led to the end of apartheid and a new reality for South Africa. How can there be peace in other tormented areas of the world? Through such small, modest, human encounters.”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie

“good listening, respectful dialogue, no personal attacks—”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie

“Listen to a story: One day a just man came to the city of Sodom. He began to preach to its inhabitants, telling them to change their evil ways. He wanted to save them from destruction, a destruction he knew would come as a result of their sins against one another. ‘Please,’ he said, ‘stop your cruelty, stop your inhumanity! You must be kinder to the stranger, to the children of the stranger!’ He went on like that for many days, but no one listened. He did not give up. He continued preaching and protesting for many years. Finally, a passerby asked him, ‘Rabbi, really, why do you do that? Don’t you see no one is listening?’ He answered, ‘I know. No one will listen, but I cannot stop. You see, at first I thought I had to preach and protest in order to change them. But now, although I continue to speak, it is not to change the world. It is so that they do not change me.’ “This is why we must learn from madmen: because they do not stop, even when others shout at them to be silent. Someone who protests a little, who writes one letter—it’s fine, it doesn’t make any problems. But someone who never stops is soon seen as an outsider, antisocial, a madman. These are the ones who show us how to effectively resist evil.”
― Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Wiesel's Classroom – A National Jewish Book Award Winner in the Vein of Tuesdays with Morrie