Quotes from Primo Levi

Scrivendo trovavo breve pace e mi sentivo ridiventare un uomo, uno come tutti, nè martire nè infame nè santo, uno di quelli che si fanno una famiglia, e guardano al futuro anzichè al passato. - Il sistema periodico

Più in generale, l'esperienza ci aveva già dimostrato infinite volte la vanità di ogni previsione: a che scopo travagliarsi per prevedere l'avvenire, quando nessun nostro sforzo, nessuna nostra parola lo avrebbe potuto minimamente influenzare?

Premonitions of the imminent catastrophe had condensed like a sticky dew in the houses and the streets, in cautious conversations and drowsy consciences.

Finally, and fundamentally, didn't he, who was honest and open, smell the foul odor of Fascist truths that were polluting the sky, didn't he find it disgraceful that a thinking man should be asked to believe without thinking? Didn't he feel disgust for all the dogmas, all the unproved declarations, all the imperatives

There are few men who know how to go to their deaths with dignity, and often they are not those whom one would expect. Few know how to remain silent and respect the silence of others.

Alas for the dreamer: the moment of consciousness that accompanies the awakening is the acutest of sufferings.

But here in the Lager there are no criminals nor madmen; no criminals because there is no moral law to contravene, no madmen because we are wholly devoid of free will, as our every action is, in time and place, the only conceivable one.

For living men, the units of time always have a value, which increases in ratio to the strength of the internal resources of the person living through them; but for us, hours, days, months spilled out sluggishly from the future into the past, always too slowly, a valueless and superfluous material, of which we sought to rid ourselves as soon as possible. ... For us, history had stopped.

Se si escludono istanti prodigiosi e singoli che il destino ci può donare, l'amare il proprio lavoro (che purtroppo è privilegio di pochi) costituisce la miglior approssimazione concreta alla felicità sulla terra: ma questa è una verità che non molti conoscono.

non era rassegnazione cosciente, ma il torpore opaco delle bestie domate con le percosse, a cui non dolgono più le percosse.

The things I had seen and suffered were burning inside of me; I felt closer to the dead than the living, and felt guilty at being a man, because men had built Auschwitz, and Auschwitz had gulped down millions of human beings, and many of my friends, and a woman who was dear to my heart.

Chi per mestiere compra o vende si riconosce facilmente: ha l'occhio vigile e il volto teso, teme la frode o la medita, e sta in guardia come un gatto all'imbrunire.

no hay vanidad mayor que esforzarse en tragarse enteros los sistemas morales elaborados por los demás, bajo otros cielos.

An extreme case of the distortion of the memory of a committed guilty act is found in its suppression. Here, too, the borderline between good and bad faith can be vague; behind the I don't know and I do not remember that one hears in courtrooms there is sometimes the precise intent to lie, but at other times it is a fossilized lie, rigidified in a formula.

Warum? - gli ho chiesto nel mio povero tedesco. - Hier ist kein warum - (qui non c'e' perche'), mi ha risposto, ricacciandomi indietro con uno spintone.

Destruir l'home és difícil, gairebé tant com crear-lo: no ha estat senzill, no ha estat ràpid, però ho heu aconseguit, alemanys. Heu-nos aquí dòcils davant de les vostres mirades: per part nostra ja no heu de témer res: ni actes de revolta, ni paraules de desafiament, ni tan sols una mirada inculpatòria.

All the bargaining-transactions outlined above are based on the smuggling of materials belonging to the Lager. This is why the SS are so eager to suppress them: the very gold of our teeth is their property, as sooner or later, torn from the mouths of the living or the dead, it ends up in their hands. So it is natural that they should take care that the gold does not leave the camp.

Strano, in qualche modo si ha sempre l'impressione di essere fortunati, che una qualche circostanza, magari infinitesima, ci trattenga sull'orlo della disperazione e ci conceda di vivere.

If understanding is impossible, knowing is imperative, because what happened could happen again.

He fights for his life but still remains everybody's friend. He knows whom to corrupt, whom to avoid, whose compassion to arouse, whom to resist.

She lived with the doctor on Via Po, in a gloomy, dark apartment, barely warmed in winter by just a small Franklin stove, and she no longer threw out anything, because everything might eventually come in handy: not even the cheese rinds or the foil on chocolates, with which she made silver balls to be sent to missions to "free a little black boy.

Dissention, diversity, the grain of salt and mustard are needed: Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that's why you are not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, but you are not.

we become aware, with amazement, that we have forgotten nothing, every memory evoked rises in front of us painfully clear.

Mu meel oli mõru; mõtlesin, et harva soostub loodus hüvitama kahju; ja sama kehtib ka inimühiskonnas, mis looduse üldskeemidest eemaldumisel on arglik ja aeglane; milline mõttelooline saavutus oleks aga jõuda nii kaugele, et loodust ei võetaks kui järgimisväärset eeskuju, vaid kui vormitut rahnu, mida tahuda, või kui vaenlast, kellele vastu hakata.