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I'd rather speak as a student of philosophy. Philosophically it makes no sense, absolutely makes no sense. Why should people inherit evil things when their memories could contain and should invoke good things?

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
Things
Memories
People
Philosophy
Philosophically
Rather
Inherit
Evil
Invoke
Speak
Contain
Sense
Student
Makes
Absolutely
Good
Students

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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When I have my manuscript finished, more or less, I type it myself, with two fingers. I type fast with two fingers. And then when it's ready, I reread, recorrect, and retype it. Everything is my own work. I do not give it to secretaries or to typists.
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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Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy to my heart. And it simply says, look, people have learned from history.
Elie Wiesel
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Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse.
Elie Wiesel
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Even in darkness it is possible to create light.
Elie Wiesel
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I developed an anger at [Moses] Mendelssohn. Later, I read the book. I realized there was nothing subversive in it.
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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He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer.
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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I am looking for the word which is there and shouldn't be there. I wonder, why is it there? Or I look for problems: the Akedah [the Binding of Isaac - Genesis 22]. It still baffles me. Each time I read it - and I read it at least twice a year - each time I discover new layers in it. Always. So this is of more concern to me than the minimalists.
Elie Wiesel
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Personally, as a student who loves words, who loves texts, I am concerned with finding something in the text from within.
Elie Wiesel
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[Friedrich] Nietzsche said something marvellous, he said Madness is not a consequence of uncertainty but of certainty, and this is fanaticism.
Elie Wiesel
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If you read Exodus 15 carefully, it describes a storm at sea. This is the old Yahwistic source. In the retelling of the story in the later Priestly source, it is more miraculous: The water stands up on either side like a wall. There are walls of water standing up. As you move back in time, oddly enough, the story becomes more historical.
Elie Wiesel
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Young people want to learn, they are thirsty for knowledge, they want to understand and remember. The main thing is to teach them where not to go. Oppression, not to go dictatorship, not to go racism and prejudice, absolutely not to go. This is a moral plan [for society].
Elie Wiesel
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Am I my brother's keeper? There you have the whole Biblical understanding that you are your brother's keeper. You also have a whole other understanding in which you are not your brother's keeper. And I've heard some extremely bright people take this position.
Elie Wiesel
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I wanted to come back to Sighet to tell you the story of my death. So that you could prepare yourselves while there was still time. To live? I don't attach any importance to my life any more. I'm alone. No, I wanted to come back, and to warn you. And see how it is, no one will listen to me.
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 philosophers are wrong: it is not words that kill, it is silence.
Elie Wiesel
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I have a tremendous respect for Professor [Frank Moore] Cross.
Elie Wiesel
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For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are responsible for what we do with those memories
Elie Wiesel