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I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it.

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
Religious
Stopped
Faith
Wrote
Night
Answer
Doe
Silence
Mean
Question
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Questioned

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.
Elie Wiesel
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There is a coalition of anti-Semitism today, the extreme left, the extreme right and in the middle the huge corpus of Islam. I'm worried, I go around with a very heavy heart.
Elie Wiesel
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I am looking for the word which is there and shouldn't be there. I wonder, why is it there? Or I look for problems: the Akedah [the Binding of Isaac - Genesis 22]. It still baffles me. Each time I read it - and I read it at least twice a year - each time I discover new layers in it. Always. So this is of more concern to me than the minimalists.
Elie Wiesel
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There is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent.
Elie Wiesel
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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.
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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It's not a weapon, [governments] don't kill, they don't conduct massacres, although massacres have been committed and many people were killed, but they stifle religion, they're afraid probably.
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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I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?
Elie Wiesel
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I want to go back to the child I used to be, and to read with the same naiveté [the Pentateuch]. I want to leave science aside and go back to the pure perception offered to me in the text that is waiting there for me year after year.
Elie Wiesel
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For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.
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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When I have my manuscript finished, more or less, I type it myself, with two fingers. I type fast with two fingers. And then when it's ready, I reread, recorrect, and retype it. Everything is my own work. I do not give it to secretaries or to typists.
Elie Wiesel
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In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.
Elie Wiesel
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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.
Elie Wiesel
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We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.
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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I personally have no doubt that the Exodus occurred. How it occurred, I don't know.
Elie Wiesel
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It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself.
Elie Wiesel
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The only way for us to help ourselves is to help others and to listen to each other's stories.
Elie Wiesel