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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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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
Perhaps
Told
Stories
Always
Kafka
Laughed
Oneself
Equal

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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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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He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
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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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Everybody is somebody's Jew.
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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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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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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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The living are more demanding the dead can wait.
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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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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.)
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The sea's only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.
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A man who would mutilate himself is well damned, isn't he?
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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.
Primo Levi
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I am constantly amazed by man's inhumanity to man.
Primo Levi
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Those who deny Auschwitz would be ready to remake it.
Primo Levi
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Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
Primo Levi
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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