Quotes by Elie Wiesel

“A destruction, an annihilation that only man can provoke, only man can prevent.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.”

“I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“I never teach the same course twice.”

“I wanted to write a commentary on the Bible, to write about the Talmud, about celebration, about the great eternal subjects: love and happiness.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“In Jewish history there are no coincidences.”

“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.”

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

“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, could have the same impact.”

“Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Some stories are true that never happened.”

“Sometimes I am asked if I know ‘the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don’t even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“When I was young I lost everything.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.”