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He wants to see whether we are capable of overcoming out base instincts, of killing the Satan within ourselves. We have no right to despair. And if he punishes us mercilessly, it is a sign that He loves us that much more.

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
Much
Killing
Mercilessly
Loves
Punishes
Despair
Instincts
Capable
Base
Wants
Satan
Within
Overcoming
Whether
Sign
Right
Instinct

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor - never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.
Elie Wiesel
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Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.
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.
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Some events do take place but are not true others are, although they never occurred.
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We're alone, but we are capable of communicating to one another both our loneliness and our desire to break through it. You say, 'I'm alone.' Someone answers, 'I'm alone too.' There's a shift in the scale of power. A bridge is thrown between the two abysses.
Elie Wiesel
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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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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.
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Only fanatics — in religion as well as in politics — can find a meaning in someone else’s death.
Elie Wiesel
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From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.
Elie Wiesel
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And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.
Elie Wiesel
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They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions. (v)
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
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You know, words have strange destiny, too. They grow. They get old. They die. They come back.
Elie Wiesel
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Naturally, the human being wants to forget pain.
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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In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.
Elie Wiesel
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I'm not a military man. I wish I were, then maybe I could give some advice.
Elie Wiesel
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I remember those faces of people who were good I saw that. I saw a father who gave his bread to his son and his son gave back the bread to his father. That, to me, was such a defeat of the enemies, will of the enemies, theories of the enemies, aspirations, here [in Auschwitz].
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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Man prefers to blame himself for all possible sins and crimes rather than come to the conclusion that God is capable of the most flagrant injustice. I still blush every time I think of the way God makes fun of human beings, his favorite toys.
Elie Wiesel