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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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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
Pain
Oppressor
Oppressors
Hurts
Cruelty
Witness
Victim
Bystander
Silence
Bystanders
Hurt
Essayists

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men.
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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Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to life as long as God himself
Elie Wiesel
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Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Elie Wiesel
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I believe that all the survivors are mad. One time or another their madness will explode. You cannot absorb that much madness and not be influenced by it. That is why the children of survivors are so tragic. I see them in school. They don't know how
Elie Wiesel
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The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Indifference creates evil. Hatred is evil itself. Indifference is what allows evil to be strong, what gives it power.
Elie Wiesel
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The opposite of faith is not heresy but indifference
Elie Wiesel
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That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life - that is what is abnormal.
Elie Wiesel
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Humanity would never tolerate it
Elie Wiesel
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..you do not leave a library if you do what it wants you to do, you are taking it with you.
Elie Wiesel
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Even if people tell me they have historical proof [that it is not historical], that doesn't really bother me.
Elie Wiesel
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If you ask me what I want to achieve, it's to create an awareness, which is already the beginning of teaching.
Elie Wiesel
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The deeper the nostalgia and the more complete the fear, the purer, the richer the word and the secret.
Elie Wiesel
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Memory is the keyword which combines past with present, past and future.
Elie Wiesel
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In spite of despair, hope must exist. In spite of suffering, humanity must prevail. And in spite of all the differences in the world, the worst enemy, the worst peril, is indifference.
Elie Wiesel
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The Holocaust is not a cheap soap opera. The Holocaust is not a romantic novel. It is something else.
Elie Wiesel
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I was there when God was put on trial....At the end of the trial, they used the word chayav, rather than 'guilty'. It means 'He owes us something'. Then we went to pray.
Elie Wiesel
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The opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
Elie Wiesel
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No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has escaped the kingdom of night.
Elie Wiesel
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My students are very special. They are my source of pride, my source of joy, my source of hope. I am terribly fond of my students.
Elie Wiesel