Elie Wiesel

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.”

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.”

“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.”

“Historically, I come from Jewish history. I had the classic upbringing in the Yeshiva, learning, learning, and more learning.”

“Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.”

“I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.”

“Now, when I hear that Christians are getting together in order to defend the people of Israel, of course it brings joy to my heart. And it simply says, look, people have learned from history.”

“I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.”

“Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must — at that moment — become the center of the universe.”

“In my tradition, one must wait until one has learned a lot of Bible and Talmud and the Prophets to handle mysticism. This isn't instant coffee. There is no instant mysticism.”

“In Jewish history there are no coincidences.”

“No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.”

“Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.”

“A disciple came to the celebrated Master of the Good Name with a question. “Rabbi, how are we to distinguish between a true master and a fake?” And the master of the good name said, “When you meet a person who poses as a master, ask him a question: whether he knows how to purify your thoughts. If he...”

“When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.”

“I'm a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it's easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it.”

“My greatest disappointment is that I believe that those of us who went through the war and tried to write about it, about their experience, became messengers. We have given the message, and nothing changed.”

“It used to be said that when the Baal Shem Tov came into a town, his impact was so strong, he didn't have to speak. His disciples had to dance or to sing or to preach to have the same effect. I think a real messenger, myself or anyone, by the very fact that he is there as a person, as a symbol, coul...”

“I don't like docudramas. Documentaries should not go together with fiction, or half-fiction or quarter-fiction. The two should not go together. They cannot mix.”

“For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.”

“There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them.”

“When my father was born, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. When I was born, it was Lithuania. When I left, it was Hungary. It is difficult to say where I come from.”

“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”

“I'll tell you what: I believe mysticism is a very serious endeavor. One must be equipped for it.”

“That is my major preoccupation, memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it.”

“Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.”

“You would be amazed at the number of doors a Nobel Prize opens.”

“Language failed me very often, but then, the substitute for me was silence, but not violence.”

“When language fails, violence becomes a language; I never had that feeling.”

“When did I learn the Bible? When I was four or five years old. It's still the pull of my childhood, a fascination with the vanished world, and I can find everything except that world.”

“Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments.”

“Someone who hates one group will end up hating everyone - and, ultimately, hating himself or herself.”

“When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.”

“If I were in the government, I would persuade the prime minister to see the beauty in the fact that people see Israel as a haven - from their sadness to their hope.”

“I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.”

“If I were immersed in constant melancholy, I would not be who I am.”

“Man, as long as he lives, is immortal. One minute before his death he shall be immortal. But one minute later, God wins.”

“Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.”

“The Bible is not only laws, it's also stories. It begins, 'In the beginning God created Heaven.' If I had written these words, I wouldn't have written anything else; it's just enough.”

“One always goes back to one's childhood in the beginning, and I come from a very religious family and surrounding. Very religious.”

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.”

“Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.”

“Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life.”

“No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.”

“I don't know much about politics, and I don't want to know. That's why I rarely involve myself in politics.”

“It's clear to me that one can't be Jewish without Israel. Religious or non-religious, Zionist or non-Zionist, Ashkenazi or Sephardic - all these will not exist without Israel.”

“Moses was the greatest legislator and the commander in chief of perhaps the first liberation army.”

“For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share.”

“I do not belong to this world. I continue to write everything in longhand. If I have to see something on the Internet, I ask my secretary or students. I am lucky, because I have people who do it for me.”

“I will say, with memoir, you must be honest. You must be truthful.”

“Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.”

“Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.”

“I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it.”

“After all, God is God because he remembers.”

“I've given my life to the principle and the ideal of memory, and remembrance.”

“In any society, fanatics who hate don't hate only me - they hate you, too. They hate everybody.”

“I have to be self-conscious of what I'm trying to do with my life.”

“Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.”

“We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.”

“I believe in superstitions. You don't talk about a child who hasn't been born.”

“There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.”

“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to k...”

“I still believe in man in spite of man. I believe in language even though it has been wounded, deformed, and perverted by the enemies of mankind. And I continue to cling to words because it is up to us to transform them into instruments of comprehension rather than contempt. It is up to us to choose...”

“Even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. That it is possible to feel free inside a prison. That even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor. That one instant before dying, man is still immortal.”

“There's a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don't lose courage. You've already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now, muster your strength, and don't lose heart. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will kee...”

“In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.”

“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames...”

“Not to transmit an experience is to betray it.”

“My faceless neighbor spoke up: “Don’t be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve.” I exploded: “What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet? His cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily: “I have more fa...”

“Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.”

“Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.”

“I write to understand as much as to be understood.”