Elie Wiesel Quotes

What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.

Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.

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.

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness. Not only are we responsible for the memories of the dead, we are responsible for what we do with those memories

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 whether we wish to use them to curse or to heal, to wound or to console.

... True, we are often too weak to stop injustices; but the least we can do is to protest against them. True, we are too poor to eliminate hunger; but in feeding one child, we protest against hunger. True, we are too timid and powerless to take on all the guards of all the political prisons in the world; but in offering our solidarity to one prisoner we denounce all the tormentors. True, we are powerless against death; but as long as we help one man, one woman, one child live one hour longer in safety and dignity, we affirm man's [woman's] right to live.

Young people want to learn, they are thirsty for knowledge, they want to understand and remember. The main thing is to teach them where not to go. Oppression, not to go; dictatorship, not to go; racism and prejudice, absolutely not to go. This is a moral plan [for society].

I believe that all the survivors are mad. One time or another their madness will explode. You cannot absorb that much madness and not be influenced by it. That is why the children of survivors are so tragic. I see them in school. They don't know how

The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. Indifference creates evil. Hatred is evil itself. Indifference is what allows evil to be strong, what gives it power.

Even in darkness it is possible to create light.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.

No human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?

To remain silent and indifferent is the greatest sin of all.

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

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

In the word question, there is a beautiful word - quest. I love that word. We are all partners in a quest. The essential questions have no answers. You are my question, and I am yours - and then there is dialogue. The moment we have answers, there is no dialogue. Questions unite people.

Every moment is a new beginning.

Be careful with words, they're dangerous. Be wary of them. They begat either demons or angels. It's up to you to give life to one or the other. Be careful, I tell you, nothing is as dangerous as giving free rein to words

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

Indifference, to me, is the epitome of evil.

Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to life as long as God himself

For the dead and the living, we must bear witness.

Today, as yesterday, a nation is judged by its attitude towards refugees.

The philosophers are wrong: it is not words that kill, it is silence.

Life is not a fist. Life is an open hand waiting for some other hand to enter it.

In order to fly, you have to give up the ground you are standing on.

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

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.

Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war

One person of integrity can make a difference.

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done... One person of integrity, can make a difference, a difference of life and death. As long as one dissident is in prison, our freedom will not be true. As long as one child is hungry, our lives will be filled with anguish and shame. What all these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs.

Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.

In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see. In the face of injustice, one may not look the other way. When someone suffers, and it is not you, that person comes first. One's very suffering gives one priority. . . . To watch over one who grieves is a more urgent duty than to think of God.

Will you join me in hearing the case for keeping weapons from those who preach death to Israel and America?

I write to understand as much as to be understood.

No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night. We know that every moment is a moment of grace, every hour an offering; not to share them would mean to betray them. Our lives no longer belong to us alone; they belong to all those who need us desperately.

Think higher, feel deeper.

We are all teachers, or should be. Anyone who relays experience to another person is a teacher. Not to transmit your experience is to betray it.

When you die and go to heaven our maker is not going to ask, 'why didn't you discover the cure for such and such? why didn't you become the Messiah?' The only question we will be asked in that precious moment is 'why didn't you become you?'

There is much to be done, there is much that can be done... one person of integrity can make a difference.

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

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

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

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

I have no doubt that faith is only pure when it does not negate the faith of another. I have no doubt that evil can be fought and that indifference is no option. I have no doubt that fanaticism is dangerous. And of all the books in the world on life, I have no doubt that the life of one person weighs more than them all.