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.
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.
If the only prayer you say throughout your life is “Thank You,” then that will be enough.
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.
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.
The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.
Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him, he liked to say.
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.
For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.
We are all brothers and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive. (pg. 39)
We do not know the worth of one single drop of blood, one single tear.
Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words
Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.
We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.
The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria…
True enemies aren’t always the ones who hate each other.
A mn ages hs enemy because he hates his own hate. He says to himself: I hate him not because he’s my enemy, not because he hates me, but because he arouses me to hate.
From Jeff Greenfield: “I once asked Elie Wiesel “Are you an optimist or a pessimist?” “An optimist,” he said. “I have to be.
Violence is not the answer. Terrorism is the most dangerous of answers.
The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes.
We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.
Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.
Our first act as free men was to throw ourselves onto the provisions. thats all we thought about. No thought of revenge, or of parents. Only of bread.
We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silent encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking, loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning.
This day I ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused.
Man asks and God replies but we don’t understand his replies because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die.
War is like night, she said. It covers everything.
I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake.
He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer.
What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It’s close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.
If life is not a celebration, why remember it ? If life — mine or that of my fellow man — is not an offering to the other, what are we doing on this earth?
Friendship marks a life even more deeply rhan love. Love risks degenerating into obsession friendship is never anything but sharing.
We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
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.
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.
Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.
No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.
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.
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.
Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.
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.
Historically, I come from Jewish history. I had the classic upbringing in the Yeshiva, learning, learning, and more learning.
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.
Religion is not man’s relationship to God, it is man’s relationship to man.
Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments.
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.
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.
It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.
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.
When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.
Mankind must remember that peace is not God’s gift to his creatures peace is our gift to each other.
Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.
I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I’ve been closer to him for that reason.
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.
What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It’s close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.
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.
I don’t know much about politics, and I don’t want to know. That’s why I rarely involve myself in politics.
Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.
I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.
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.
Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.
In any society, fanatics who hate don’t hate only me – they hate you, too. They hate everybody.