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I think that human beings are capable of the worst things possible.

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
Think
Thinking
Beings
Capable
Worst
Possible
Human
Humans
Things

More quotes by Elie Wiesel

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And action is the only remedy to indifference, the most insidious danger of all.
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But where was I to start? The world is so vast, I shall start with the country I knew best, my own. But my country is so very large. I had better start with my town. But my town, too, is large. I had best start with my street. No, my home. No, my family. Never mind, I shall start with myself.
Elie Wiesel
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I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.
Elie Wiesel
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The only place where I felt at home, on familiar ground, was the Jewish cemetery. And yet I had never set foot in it before. Children had been forbidden to enter.
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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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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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Today there isn't a university where they don't have special courses [Jewish studies or Holocaust studies], hundreds and hundreds of universities, young people today want to know more than their elders did, much more, and therefore I am very optimistic about young people.
Elie Wiesel
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You cross a border and the policeman or the frontier policeman look at you, What are you doing here? Why are you coming? How long will you stay? Well, if I had nearly enough years, I would write a novel about being a refugee.
Elie Wiesel
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Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.
Elie Wiesel
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I was there when God was put on trial....At the end of the trial, they used the word chayav, rather than 'guilty'. It means 'He owes us something'. Then we went to pray.
Elie Wiesel
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Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.
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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How can one explain the attraction terror holds for some minds — and why for intellectuals? . . .In a totalitarian and terrorist regime, man is no longer a unique being with infinite possibilities and limitless choices but a number, a puppet, with just this difference — numbers and puppets are not susceptible to fear.
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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Always remember, my good friends, that there is one sin we must never commit and it is to humiliate another person or to allow another person to be humiliated in our presence without us screaming and shouting and protesting.
Elie Wiesel
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The sins I regret the most are the one's I didn't commit.
Elie Wiesel
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Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war
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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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