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

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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My faith is a wounded faith, but my life is not without faith. I didn't divorce God, but I'm quarrelling and arguing and questioning, it's a wounded faith.
Elie Wiesel
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The whole community must be saved [in Tibet].
Elie Wiesel
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Judaism is in a sense a Rabbinic, Talmudic religion, rather than a Biblical religion.
Elie Wiesel
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Always remember, my good friends, that there is one sin we must never commit and it is to humiliate another person or to allow another person to be humiliated in our presence without us screaming and shouting and protesting.
Elie Wiesel
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People become the stories they hear and the stories they tell.
Elie Wiesel
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I don't believe in collective guilt. The children of killers are not killers, but children.
Elie Wiesel
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Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.
Elie Wiesel
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I have an open mind - - I read, I study, I study your work and the work of other people with less talent. But that is not what I do in my writing and teaching. Still the love for the text we have in common.
Elie Wiesel
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Nobody is stronger, nobody is weaker than someone who came back. There is nothing you can do to such a person because whatever you could do is less than what has already been done to him. We have already paid the price.
Elie Wiesel
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Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death.
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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Life is not a fist. Life is an open hand waiting for some other hand to enter it.
Elie Wiesel
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I have one request: may I never use my reason against truth.
Elie Wiesel
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Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.
Elie Wiesel
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I think [teacher] is the noblest profession.
Elie Wiesel
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Young people want to learn, they are thirsty for knowledge, they want to understand and remember. The main thing is to teach them where not to go. Oppression, not to go dictatorship, not to go racism and prejudice, absolutely not to go. This is a moral plan [for society].
Elie Wiesel
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I would say to [Chinese government], You don't need Tibet really. You don't need all the problems Tibet creates for you. It's so small, so far away. Give them their religious freedom and I know that they wouldn't misuse it.
Elie Wiesel
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I listen to music when I write. I need the musical background. Classical music. I'm behind the times. I'm still with Baroque music, Gregorian chant, the requiems, and with the quartets of Beethoven and Brahms. That is what I need for the climate, for the surroundings, for the landscape: the music.
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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Words can be turned into spears. They can be turned into prayers. It's a strange world that you are in. But you deal with words.
Elie Wiesel