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If there is a single theme that dominates all my writings, all my obsessions, it is that of memory-because I fear forgetfulness as much as hatred and death.

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
Death
Forgetfulness
Writing
Obsession
Much
Theme
Hatred
Memory
Single
Dominates
Memories
Obsessions
Fear
Writings

More quotes by 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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It always hurts when you lose a secret.
Elie Wiesel
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[Shirat ha-Yam ] is one of the earliest, if not the earliest, pieces of Biblical literature that we possess. It is much closer to history than later traditions of the Exodus.
Elie Wiesel
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I don't want my past to become anyone else's future.
Elie Wiesel
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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.
Elie Wiesel
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That is my major preoccupation, memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it.
Elie Wiesel
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The impact of the holocaust on believers as well as unbelievers, on Jews as well as Christians, has not yet been evaluated. Not deeply, not enough.
Elie Wiesel
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Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.
Elie Wiesel
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[Chinese] are a huge empire now, you'll soon be - in a few years two billion people in the world. So, you should be more compassionate, more understanding. And above all, you don't need all their trouble.
Elie Wiesel
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I've worked with five Presidents in America, all of them I ask the same question always: Why didn't the American allies bomb the railways going to Auschwitz?
Elie Wiesel
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The sincere Christian knows that what died in Auschwitz was not the Jewish people but Christianity.
Elie Wiesel
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I belong to a tradition that believes that the death of a single child is a blemish on creation.
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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Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.
Elie Wiesel
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After all, God is God because he remembers.
Elie Wiesel
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I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.
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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It's not a weapon, [governments] don't kill, they don't conduct massacres, although massacres have been committed and many people were killed, but they stifle religion, they're afraid probably.
Elie Wiesel
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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.
Elie Wiesel
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Sometimes I think I prefer the storyteller in [Roman Vishniac] to the photographer. But aren't they one and the same?
Elie Wiesel