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I write to understand as much as to be understood.

Elie Wiesel

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Elie Wiesel
Age: 87 †
Born: 1928
Born: September 30
Died: 2016
Died: July 2
Autobiographer
Humanist
Journalist
Judaic Scholar
Novelist
Philosopher
Political Activist
Professor
Translator
University Teacher
Writer
Sighetu Marmaţiei
Eliezer Wiesel
A-7713
Élie Wiesel
Literature
Understanding
Understand
Write
Writing
Much
Understood

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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When adults wage war, children perish.
Elie Wiesel
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Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one 'last night' to another?
Elie Wiesel
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I had to be honest with myself and that I felt hatred then, but as children say I hate you, it's not really hate, you know, it's anger.
Elie Wiesel
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I believe in God--in spite of God! I believe in Mankind--in spite of Mankind! I believe in the Future--in spite of the Past!
Elie Wiesel
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Memory is the keyword which combines past with present, past and future.
Elie Wiesel
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People become the stories they hear and the stories they tell.
Elie Wiesel
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I'd rather speak as a student of philosophy. Philosophically it makes no sense, absolutely makes no sense. Why should people inherit evil things when their memories could contain and should invoke good things?
Elie Wiesel
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How can one explain the attraction terror holds for some minds — and why for intellectuals? . . .In a totalitarian and terrorist regime, man is no longer a unique being with infinite possibilities and limitless choices but a number, a puppet, with just this difference — numbers and puppets are not susceptible to fear.
Elie Wiesel
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Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.
Elie Wiesel
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Oh, it is not death that frightens me, but the impossibility of imparting some meaning to my past.
Elie Wiesel
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Some events do take place but are not true others are, although they never occurred.
Elie Wiesel
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Naturally, the human being wants to forget pain.
Elie Wiesel
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When I say it doesn't make much difference, I mean in terms of the importance of the piece of literature.
Elie Wiesel
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One thing is that [Tibetans] should not give up hope. That's - even [if] it lasts a century. My discussions with the Dalai Lama always were about that.
Elie Wiesel
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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
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First we must understand that there can be no life without risk - and when our center is strong, everything else is secondary, even the risks.
Elie Wiesel
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I have one request: may I never use my reason against truth.
Elie Wiesel
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All those - or most of those - who went through the experience during the Second World War - they want to remember more - more and more. It's never enough because we feel that we have to tell the story. And no one can tell the story fully.
Elie Wiesel
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For me [Patriarchs] exist. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob exist today. They are people that you see with white beards. I have no doubt of their existence.
Elie Wiesel
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I listen to music when I write. I need the musical background. Classical music. I'm behind the times. I'm still with Baroque music, Gregorian chant, the requiems, and with the quartets of Beethoven and Brahms. That is what I need for the climate, for the surroundings, for the landscape: the music.
Elie Wiesel