Quotes from Elie Wiesel

In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous. We believed in God, trust in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark from the Shekhinah's flame; that every one of us carries in his eyes and in his soul a reflection of God's image. That was the source if not the cause of all our ordeals.

An act so absolute as that of killing involves not only the killer but, as well, those who have formed him. In murdering a man I was making them murderers.

You hate me, don't you?" I didn't hate him at all, but I wanted to hate him. That would have made it all very easy. Hate—like faith or love or war—justifies everything.

The ghetto was ruled by neither German nor Jew; it was ruled by delusion.     SOME

people not only refused to believe his tales, they refused to listen.

There are those who tell me that I survived in order to write this text. I am not convinced. I don't know how I survived; I was weak, rather shy; I did nothing to save myself. A miracle? Certainly not. If heaven could or would perform a miracle for me, why not for others more deserving than myself? It was nothing more than chance. However, having survived, I needed to give some meaning to my survival.

One that most horrible day, even among all those other bad days, when the child witnessed the hanging (yes!) of another child who, he tells us, had the face of a sad angel, he heard someone behind him groan: For God's sake, where is God? And from within me, I heard a voice answer: Where He is? This is where - hanging here from this gallows.

Yom Kippur. The day of Atonement. Should we fast? The question was hotly debated. To fast would mean a surer, swifter death. We fasted here the whole year round. The whole year was Yom Kippur.

Faster! Faster! Move, you lazy good-for-nothings!" the Hungarian police were screaming. That was when I began to hate them, and my hatred remains our only link today. They were our first oppressors. They were the first faces of hell and death. They

Man comes closer to God through the questions he asks Him, he liked to say. Therein lies true dialogue. Man asks and God replies. But we don't understand His replies. We cannot under-stand them. Because they dwell in the depths of our souls and re-main there until we die. The real answers, Eliezer, you will find only within yourself. And why do you pray, Moishe? I asked him. I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions.

No one was praying for the night to pass quickly. The stars were but sparks of the immense conflagration that was consuming us.

Never shall I forget these things, even if I'm condemned to live as long as God himself

The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria …" His voice broke. "Father

Behind me, I heard the same man asking: "For God's sake, where is God?" And from within me, I heard a voice answer: "Where He is? This is where—hanging here from this gallows …" That night, the soup tasted of corpses.

the one I await. You don't think he'll come? I do. He promised. That's my power over him; without me his fate would be incomplete. Whether he likes it or not, I am the keeper of his promise. Should I die before him, without first returning to him his bond and his freedom, his secret would lose its meaning.

The silence of two people is deeper than the silence of one. Involuntarily I began to talk.

Our ethics are not meant to be created in our childhoods and shoved in a box somewhere; they must be reshaped daily, as we encounter scenarios that challenge our beliefs.

From behind their windows, from behind their shutters, our fellow citizens watched as we passed.

Despite overwhelmingly favorable reviews, the book sold poorly. The subject was considered morbid and interested no one. If a rabbi happened to mention the book in his sermon, there were always people ready to complain that it was senseless to "burden our children with the tragedies of the Jewish past.

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 faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."     THAT

behind the shutters, our friends of yesterday were probably waiting for the moment when they could loot our homes.

My father, an enlightened spirit, believed in man. My grandfather, a fervent Hasid, believed in God. The one taught me to speak, the other to sing. Both loved stories. And when I tell mine, I hear their voices. Whispering from beyond the silenced storm, they are what links the survivor to their memory.

One of his [Rebbe Mikhal of Zlotchev] prayers: I have but one request; may I never use my reason against truth.

most of us turn to religion for our ethics because we don't know where else to find them.