Quote

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

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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
Also
Phenomenon
Give
Convinced
Care
Danger
Gratifying
Giving
Becoming
Explained
Thing
Dangerous
Named
Name
Island
Names
Islands
Taken
Consists

More quotes by Primo Levi

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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
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The aims of life are the best defense against death.
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The sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.
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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.
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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.
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I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself
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There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.
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Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
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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.
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A man who would mutilate himself is well damned, isn't he?
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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.
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We collected in a group in front of their door, and we experienced within ourselves a grief that was new for us, the ancient grief of the people that has no land, the grief without hope of the exodus which is renewed in every century.
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He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
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Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often loses himself.
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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.
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The bond between a man and his profession is similar to that which ties him to his country it is just as complex, often ambivalent, and in general it is understood completely only when it is broken: by exile or emigration in the case of one's country, by retirement in the case of a trade or profession.
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I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.
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Today I think that if for no other reason than that an Auschwitz existed, no one in our age should speak of Providence.
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Everybody is somebody's Jew.
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I am constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man.
Primo Levi