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[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

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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
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More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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A man can laugh while he suffers.
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Today there isn't a university where they don't have special courses [Jewish studies or Holocaust studies], hundreds and hundreds of universities, young people today want to know more than their elders did, much more, and therefore I am very optimistic about young people.
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Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.
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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?'
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You shouldn’t act as a spokesperson for someone who’s trying to impose his will on you.
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We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.
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If there is one person on the planet who still is suffering from loneliness and from pain or despair, and we don't know about it, or we don't want to know about it, then something is wrong with the world.
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Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.
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The deeper the nostalgia and the more complete the fear, the purer, the richer the word and the secret.
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I never compared Nazis into communism, but communism was the same thing, the end justifies the means. Whatever the means.
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If life is not a celebration, why remember it ? If life --- mine or that of my fellow man --- is not an offering to the other, what are we doing on this earth?
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All I hope is that the American coalition is doing its best to prevent civilian casualties and the killing of innocent people.
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In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.
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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.
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I became one of [Moses Mendelssohn] defenders. But then I heard the words Biblical criticism again. And, of course, afterward, I studied it more closely.
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It is up to us to determine whether the years ahead will be for humankind a curse or a blessing. We always must remember that it is given to men and women to choose life and living, not death and destruction.
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The darkest days in my life after the war, after the war, was when I discovered that the ... most of the members and commanders of the Einsatz group that were doing the killings, not even in gas chambers, but killing with machine guns, had college degrees from German universities and PhD's and MD's. Couldn't believe it.
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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.
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Of course, afterward, I studied [commentary on the Bible by a Rabbi Moshe Dessauer] more closely. But, in truth, it doesn't touch me. It doesn't change my attitude toward the text.
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Nevertheless, we are led to believe that true words can communicate more than truth, they communicate what life is all about, that it's threatened, when it's threatened, when it's in danger, then it becomes a curse or a blessing.
Elie Wiesel