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The philosophers are wrong: it is not words that kill, it is silence.

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
Words
Philosophers
Philosopher
Kill
Silence
Wrong

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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Oh, it is not death that frightens me, but the impossibility of imparting some meaning to my past.
Elie Wiesel
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In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. In the face of injustice, one may not look the other way. When someone suffers, and it is not you, that person comes first. One's very suffering gives one priority. . . . To watch over one who grieves is a more urgent duty than to think of God.
Elie Wiesel
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How can one explain the attraction terror holds for some minds — and why for intellectuals? . . .In a totalitarian and terrorist regime, man is no longer a unique being with infinite possibilities and limitless choices but a number, a puppet, with just this difference — numbers and puppets are not susceptible to fear.
Elie Wiesel
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The Jewish tradition of learning-is learning. Adam chose knowledge instead of immortality.
Elie Wiesel
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For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.
Elie Wiesel
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My teachers [ had the most impact in my life]. Of course, my father and grandfather, but after my family, my teachers.
Elie Wiesel
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Today there isn't a university where they don't have special courses [Jewish studies or Holocaust studies], hundreds and hundreds of universities, young people today want to know more than their elders did, much more, and therefore I am very optimistic about young people.
Elie Wiesel
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Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless 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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It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself.
Elie Wiesel
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Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.
Elie Wiesel
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Philosophy is a slow process of logic and logical discourse: A bringing B bringing C and so forth. In mysticism you can jump from A to Z. But the ultimate objective is the same. It's knowledge. It's truth.
Elie Wiesel
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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 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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I have absolutely no problem with the young Germans. I even feel sorry for the young Germans because to be maybe sons or daughters of killers is different than them to be sons and daughters of the victims. And I felt sorry for them. I still do.
Elie Wiesel
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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
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Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.
Elie Wiesel
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If the Book of the Law could be forgotten for so many years, who knows what was done to it during those years? Maybe it was lost later, too. And another one replaced it, and that one is no longer the original text. These are questions that perturb me much more than whether it's history or not history.
Elie Wiesel
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You shouldn’t act as a spokesperson for someone who’s trying to impose his will on you.
Elie Wiesel
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I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.
Elie Wiesel