Quote

Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

Elie Wiesel

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Become
Religion
Protection
Jeopardy
Women
Moment
Whenever
Persecuted
Human
Universe
Dignity
Sensitivity
Humans
Lives
National
Persecution
Sometimes
Inspirational
Danger
Interfere
Must
Moments
Views
Irrelevant
Men
Political
Race
Borders
Sensitivities
Life
Place
Nations
Center
Endangered

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

Image
I describe incidents which may or may not have happened but which are true.
Elie Wiesel
Image
God made (human beings) because he loves stories.
Elie Wiesel
Image
I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone - terribly alone in a world without God and without (hu)man(ity).
Elie Wiesel
Image
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
Image
The story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac are nowhere in any other tradition.
Elie Wiesel
Image
Memory is the keyword which combines past with present, past and future.
Elie Wiesel
Image
You cross a border and the policeman or the frontier policeman look at you, What are you doing here? Why are you coming? How long will you stay? Well, if I had nearly enough years, I would write a novel about being a refugee.
Elie Wiesel
Image
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
Image
There is not anti-semitism as an ideology. The civilized world must think that anti-semitism is stupid.
Elie Wiesel
Image
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
Image
We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.
Elie Wiesel
Image
A Jew who converted, who simulated, was, at least in some periods, safe. Hitler in the beginning did not want to kill all the Jews but he wanted us to have a Germany free of Jews. If America had allowed Jews to come in, the British had accepted Jews from Palestine, they were safe.
Elie Wiesel
Image
I wrote my first book, I published it in 1955, it was in Yiddish and it was called And The World Was Silent.
Elie Wiesel
Image
did everything I could in my life to be immune to hatred, because hatred is a cancer.
Elie Wiesel
Image
I try to see their moral relevance [in the Bible] and, of course, to admire the literary beauty of the text. Prophetic poetry: No one has written the way Isaiah does.
Elie Wiesel
Image
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.
Elie Wiesel
Image
In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.
Elie Wiesel
Image
It may well be that our means are fairly limited and our possibilities restricted when it comes to applying pressure on our government But is this a reason to do nothing? Despair is nor an answer Neither is resignation Resignation only leads to indifference, which is not merely a sin but a punishment.
Elie Wiesel
Image
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
Image
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.
Elie Wiesel