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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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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
Men
Laughter
Gift
Gave
Mistake
Wish
Tell
Carelessly
Order
Bend
Made
Wishes

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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I want to go back to the child I used to be, and to read with the same naiveté [the Pentateuch]. I want to leave science aside and go back to the pure perception offered to me in the text that is waiting there for me year after year.
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If you make a determination that [story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac] is not historical, do you throw it away? I don't think we can say whether it's precisely, scientifically historical.
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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.
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It was the beginning of the war. I was twelve years old, my parents were alive, and God still dwelt in our town.
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Moses was the greatest legislator and the commander in chief of perhaps the first liberation army.
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When I say it doesn't make much difference, I mean in terms of the importance of the piece of literature.
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I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it . . .
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When I see a child who is hungry, I see a person who is humiliated.
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When you see the abyss, and we have looked into it, then what? There isn't much room at the edge -- one person, another, not many. If you are there, others cannot be there. If you are there, you become a protective wall. What happens? You become part of t
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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
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Every moment contains a spark of eternity.
Elie Wiesel
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Remembering is a noble and necessary act. The call of memory, the call to memory, reaches us from the very dawn of history. No commandment figures so frequently, so insistently, in the Bible. It is incumbent upon us to remember the good we have received, and the evil we have suffered.
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Some of the men spoke of God: His mysterious ways, the sins of the Jewish people, and the redemption to come. As for me, I had ceased to pray. I concurred with Job! I was not denying His existence, but I doubted His absolute justice.
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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We know, for instance, of The Book of the Wars of the Lord. It is mentioned in the text [Numbers 21:14]. There was a book: Where is it? One day you will dig and you will maybe find it. [Laughter]
Elie Wiesel
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None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims.
Elie Wiesel
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I never compared Nazis into communism, but communism was the same thing, the end justifies the means. Whatever the means.
Elie Wiesel
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Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
Elie Wiesel
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God made (human beings) because he loves stories.
Elie Wiesel
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I would hesitate to give advice to the Dalai Lama and his people because they are suffering. The Dalai Lama suffered from exile and the people in Tibet suffer from oppression.
Elie Wiesel