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It is up to us to determine whether the years ahead will be for humankind a curse or a blessing. We always must remember that it is given to men and women to choose life and living, not death and destruction.

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
Living
Humankind
Life
Death
Curse
Given
Ahead
Remember
Determine
Women
Destruction
Must
Blessing
Years
Choose
Always
Whether

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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Even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. That it is possible to feel free inside a prison. That even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor. That one instant before dying, man is still immortal.
Elie Wiesel
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I have tried to keep memory alive... I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.
Elie Wiesel
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Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.
Elie Wiesel
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Life is really fascinated only by death. It vibrates only when it comes in contact with death.
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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The opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
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 was 15, not 14, when I was inside there [Auschwitz], 15, and for me both were actually a surprise.
Elie Wiesel
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The whole community must be saved [in Tibet].
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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Weapons means killing. Weapons is ah, I'm simply sensitive to the word.
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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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
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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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Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.
Elie Wiesel
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Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.
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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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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Writers write because they cannot allow the characters that inhabit them to suffocate them. These characters want to get out, to breathe fresh air and partake of the wine of friendship were they to remain locked in, they would forcibly break down the walls. It is they who force the writer to tell their stories.
Elie Wiesel
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I don't think [governments] use [religious repression ] as a weapon, they use it as a as a means of - of oppression. To stifle opposition. To mute resistance.
Elie Wiesel