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For me democracy is the only way of life. The opposite is dictatorship or anarchy.

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
Opposite
Opposites
Democracy
Way
Life
Dictatorship
Anarchy

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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A word is worth a thousand pictures.
Elie Wiesel
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Therefore, all my adult life, since I began my life as an author, or as a teacher, I always try to listen to the victim.
Elie Wiesel
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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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Just as there are predatory birds, so there are predatory ideas: I came under their spell. . . .Just as the survivors say that no one will ever understand the victims, what I must tell you is that you will never understand the executioners.
Elie Wiesel
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My faith is a wounded faith, but my life is not without faith. I didn't divorce God, but I'm quarrelling and arguing and questioning, it's a wounded faith.
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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The sincere Christian knows that what died in Auschwitz was not the Jewish people but Christianity.
Elie Wiesel
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When you die and go to heaven our maker is not going to ask, 'why didn't you discover the cure for such and such? why didn't you become the Messiah?' The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is 'why didn't you become you?'
Elie Wiesel
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I don't want my past to become anyone else's future.
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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I listen to music when I write. I need the musical background. Classical music. I'm behind the times. I'm still with Baroque music, Gregorian chant, the requiems, and with the quartets of Beethoven and Brahms. That is what I need for the climate, for the surroundings, for the landscape: the music.
Elie Wiesel
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I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?
Elie Wiesel
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There are real people behind the [Bible] stories.
Elie Wiesel
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When adults wage war, children perish.
Elie Wiesel
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We've sort of agreed that the account of Adam and Eve is a story.
Elie Wiesel
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[Moishe] explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer.... And why do you pray, Moishe?' I asked him. I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions.
Elie Wiesel
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No one has written the way Isaiah does. The royal style, the majesty of the language. He is called the prince of the prophets. No one has written like that. I've studied ancient literature, Homer, for example, but it's not the same thing.
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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A Jew who converted, who simulated, was, at least in some periods, safe. Hitler in the beginning did not want to kill all the Jews but he wanted us to have a Germany free of Jews. If America had allowed Jews to come in, the British had accepted Jews from Palestine, they were safe.
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