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I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself

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
Kill
Alive
Enough
Even

More quotes by Primo Levi

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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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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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The aims of life are the best defense against death.
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Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.
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I am constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man.
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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.
Primo Levi
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Everybody is somebody's Jew.
Primo Levi
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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.
Primo Levi
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A man who would mutilate himself is well damned, isn't he?
Primo Levi
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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
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Perhaps Kafka laughed when he told stories [. . . ] because one isn't always equal to oneself.
Primo Levi
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There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.
Primo Levi
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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.
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Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
Primo Levi
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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.
Primo Levi
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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.
Primo Levi
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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.
Primo Levi
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Anyone who has obeyed nature by transmitting a piece of gossip experiences the explosive relief that accompanies the satisfying of a primary need.
Primo Levi
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He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
Primo Levi
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The living are more demanding the dead can wait.
Primo Levi