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

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
Must
Tests
Survival
Duty
Story
Whatever
Tell
Survives
Stories
Whoever
May
Test

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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Every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering not to share them would mean to betray them.
Elie Wiesel
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Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.
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every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer . . .
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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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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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Memory is the keyword which combines past with present, past and future.
Elie Wiesel
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I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it.
Elie Wiesel
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When you die and go to heaven our maker is not going to ask, 'why didn't you discover the cure for such and such? why didn't you become the Messiah?' The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is 'why didn't you become you?'
Elie Wiesel
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A disciple came to the celebrated Master of the Good Name with a question. “Rabbi, how are we to distinguish between a true master and a fake?” And the master of the good name said, “When you meet a person who poses as a master, ask him a question: whether he knows how to purify your thoughts. If he says that he knows, then he is a fake.
Elie Wiesel
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I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.
Elie Wiesel
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What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.
Elie Wiesel
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What do all my books have in common? A commitment to memory.
Elie Wiesel
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Perhaps fate isn't blind after all. Perhaps it's capable of fantasy, even compassion.
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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It is obvious that the war which Hitler and his accomplices waged was a war not only against Jewish men, women, and children, but also against Jewish religion, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, therefore Jewish memory.
Elie Wiesel
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Do you know what laughter is? I'll tell you. It's God's mistake. When God made man in order to bend him to his wishes he carelessly gave him the gift of laughter.
Elie Wiesel
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Take sides. Neutrality always serves the oppressor and never the oppressed.
Elie Wiesel
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Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.
Elie Wiesel
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It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.
Elie Wiesel
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If you make a determination that [story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac] is not historical, do you throw it away? I don't think we can say whether it's precisely, scientifically historical.
Elie Wiesel