Quote

I am constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man.

Primo Levi

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Primo Levi
Age: 67 †
Born: 1919
Born: July 31
Died: 1987
Died: April 11
Author
Autobiographer
Chemist
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Politician
Science Fiction Writer
Writer
Turin
Italy
Men
Inhumanity
Amazed
Constantly
Mankind

More quotes by Primo Levi

Image
We must be listened to: above and beyond our personal experience, we have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone. It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.
Primo Levi
Image
Nothing can be said: nothing sure, nothing probable, nothing honest. Better to err through omission than through commission: better to refrain from steering the fate of others, since it is already so difficult to navigate one's own.
Primo Levi
Image
Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
Primo Levi
Image
The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by the Germans in defeat.
Primo Levi
Image
Today I think that if for no other reason than that an Auschwitz existed, no one in our age should speak of Providence.
Primo Levi
Image
I live in my house as I live inside my skin: I know more beautiful, more ample, more sturdy and more picturesque skins: but it would seem to me unnatural to exchange them for mine.
Primo Levi
Image
The living are more demanding the dead can wait.
Primo Levi
Image
Perhaps Kafka laughed when he told stories [. . . ] because one isn't always equal to oneself.
Primo Levi
Image
Each of us bears the imprint of a friend met along the way In each the trace of each.
Primo Levi
Image
He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
Primo Levi
Image
To give a name to a thing is as gratifying as giving a name to an island, but it is also dangerous: the danger consists in one's becoming convinced that all is taken care of and that once named, the phenomenon has also been explained.
Primo Levi
Image
It is this refrain that we hear repeated by everyone: you are not at home, this is not a sanatorium, the only exit is by way of the Chimney. (What did it mean? Soon we were all to learn what it meant.)
Primo Levi
Image
The aims of life are the best defense against death.
Primo Levi
Image
To destroy a man is difficult, almost as difficult as to create one: it has not been easy, nor quick, but you Germans have succeeded. Here we are, docile under your gaze from our side you have nothing more to fear no acts of violence, no words of defiance, not even a look of judgment.
Primo Levi
Image
We will not return No one must leave here and so carry to the world, together with the sign impressed on his skin, the evil tidings of what man's presumption made of man in Auschwitz
Primo Levi
Image
A man who would mutilate himself is well damned, isn't he?
Primo Levi
Image
If it is true that there is no greater sorrow than to remember a happy time in a state of misery, it is just as true that calling up a moment of anguish in a tranquil mood, seated quietly at one's desk, is a source of profound satisfaction.
Primo Levi
Image
Everybody is somebody's Jew.
Primo Levi
Image
I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.
Primo Levi
Image
The sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.
Primo Levi