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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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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
Surprise
Inside
Actually
Auschwitz

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I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it.
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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.
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What is man? Hope turned to dust. No. What is man? Dust turned to hope.
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The Holocaust is a sacred subject. One should take off one's shoes when entering its domain, one should tremble each time one pronounces the word.
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The Jewish tradition of learning-is learning. Adam chose knowledge instead of immortality.
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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].
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I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone - terribly alone in a world without God and without (hu)man(ity).
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A voice behind me asked, Where is God? Where is He? Where can He be now? and a voice within me answered: Where? Here He is - He has been hanged here, on these gallows.
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I wrote my first book, I published it in 1955, it was in Yiddish and it was called And The World Was Silent.
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In the beginning there was faith - which is childish trust - which is vain and illusion - which is dangerous.
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The opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.
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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
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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.
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Usually I get up early every morning and from 6:00 to 10:00 I write. The rest of the time I study and prepare my work or I do other things. But four hours a day are exclusively devoted to writing.
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No human being is illegal.
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Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.
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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Sometimes I think I prefer the storyteller in [Roman Vishniac] to the photographer. But aren't they one and the same?
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Tibet, why is it occupied? For political reasons maybe they have a reason. I don't know. But religiously, why? The fact that the religious community is being oppressed and persecuted is something that every single person in the world who has any religious faith and religious feeling for - for people who have faith should speak up.
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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