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I learned to trust the threats of enemies before the promises of friends.

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
Friends
Threats
Promises
Enemies
Threat
Promise
Trust
Learned
Enemy

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.
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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.
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When I began teaching you hardly could find a university in America or a college where they would teach either Jewish studies or Holocaust studies.
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For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are responsible for what we do with those memories
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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.
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Better that one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling, he has decided, if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all.
Elie Wiesel
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We didn't really differ [with Frank Moore Cross] because we have the same love of the text. We share that love.
Elie Wiesel
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Only one enemy is worse than despair: indifference. In every area of human creativity, indifference is the enemy indifference of evil is worse than evil, because it is also sterile.
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If you read Exodus 15 carefully, it describes a storm at sea. This is the old Yahwistic source. In the retelling of the story in the later Priestly source, it is more miraculous: The water stands up on either side like a wall. There are walls of water standing up. As you move back in time, oddly enough, the story becomes more historical.
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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.
Elie Wiesel
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One person of integrity can make a difference.
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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Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.
Elie Wiesel
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Except if it has some historical meaning for them to have Tibet under their control. I don't understand why [ Chinese] want it so much.
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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Go over to Greece with the Iliad and Odyssey. These have elements of history, and they have non-historical elements. It's very difficult to pull them apart. And I think there's not much reason to.
Elie Wiesel
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I really don't teach the way Professor [Frank Moore] Cross does. I don't teach the text the same way he does. I teach Biblical themes, Biblical events.
Elie Wiesel
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I think that human beings are capable of the worst things possible.
Elie Wiesel
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It always hurts when you lose a secret.
Elie Wiesel
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Usually I get up early every morning and from 6:00 to 10:00 I write. The rest of the time I study and prepare my work or I do other things. But four hours a day are exclusively devoted to writing.
Elie Wiesel