Quotes from Elie Wiesel

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

There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them.

There is divine beauty in learning, just as there is human beauty in tolerance. To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.

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

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

Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.

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

To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....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.

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

There is divine beauty in learning... To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.

One person of integrity can make a difference.

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

If the only prayer you say throughout your life is "Thank You," then that will be enough.

I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.

Write only if you cannot live without writing. Write only what you alone can write.

For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.

For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.

I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.

Only the guilty are guilty. Their children are not.

I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?

One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live.

Think higher, feel deeper.

We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.