Quotes from Elie Wiesel

Peace is our gift to each other.

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

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.

The Bible is not only laws, it's also stories.

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

A man who is fighting for the future of mankind is not waiting for torture, he's waiting for -- the Revolution.

What would the future of man be if it were devoid of memory?

It is by his freedom that a man knows himself, by his sovereignty over his own life that a man measures himself.

I'm not a military man. I wish I were, then maybe I could give some advice.

A man can laugh while he suffers.

Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.

Each man was his own executioner and his own victim.

I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone - terribly alone in a world without God and without (hu)man(ity).

Do you know what laughter is? I'll tell you. It's God's mistake. When God made man in order to bend him to his wishes he carelessly gave him the gift of laughter.

Drawn to childhood, the old man will seek it in a thousand different ways.

What is man? Hope turned to dust. No. What is man? Dust turned to hope.

Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.

Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace. Does that seem paradoxical? Well, war is not afraid of paradoxes.

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

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.

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.

From Jeff Greenfield: "I once asked Elie Wiesel "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" "An optimist, " he said. "I have to be.

Every moment is a new beginning.