Quotes from Primo Levi

Survival without renunciation of any part of one's own moral world – apart from powerful and direct interventions by fortune – was conceded only to very few superior individuals, made of the stuff of martyrs and saints.

Get up": the illusory barrier of the warm blankets, the thin armor of sleep, the nightly evasion with its very torments drops to pieces around us, and we find ourselves mercilessly awake, exposed to insult, atrociously naked and vulnerable. A

son ellos, los hundidos, los cimientos del campo; ellos, la masa anónima, continuamente renovada y siempre idéntica, de no-hombres que marchan y trabajan en silencio, apagada en ellos la llama divina, demasiado vacíos ya para sufrir verdaderamente. Se duda en llamarlos vivos: se duda en llamar muerte a su muerte, ante la que no temen porque están demasiado cansados para comprenderla.

For a few hours we can be unhappy in the manner of free men.

Clausner shows me the bottom of his bowl. Where others have carved their numbers, and Alberto and I our names, Clausner has written: 'Ne pas chercher à comprendre.

Come Rumkowski, anche noi siamo così abbagliati dal potere e dal prestigio da dimenticare la nostra fragilità essenziale: col potere veniamo a patti, volentieri o no, dimenticando che nel ghetto siamo tutti, che il ghetto è cintato, che fuori del recinto stanno i signori della morte, e che poco lontano aspetta il treno.

Nor was it the normal, portentous intimacy of twenty-year-olds: [...] although we were at the age when one always has the need, instinct, and immodesty of inflicting on one another everything that swarms in one's head and elsewhere (and this is an age that can last long, but ends with the first compromise)...

We had felt no joy in seeing Viena undone and the Germans broken, but rather anguish. Not compassion, but a larger anguish, which was mixed up with our own misery, with the heavy threatening sensation of an irreparable and definitive evil, which was present everywhere. Nestling like gangrene in the guts of Europe and the world. The seed of future harm.

In the midst of the smoke and noise Dov shouted into his ear: Empty the gun now. Don't hold back. We're fighting for three lines in the history books.

it is urgent that my chemical alter ego, so in love with digressions, get back on the rails, which is that of fornicating with matter in order to support myself

Se è vero che non c'è maggior dolore che ricordarsi del tempo felice nella miseria, è altrettanto vero che rievocare un'angoscia ad animo tranquillo, seduti quieti alla scrivania, è fonte di soddisfazione profonda.

From all my talks with Henri, even the most cordial, I have always left with a slight taste of defeat; of also having been, somehow inadvertently, not a man to him, but an instrument in his hands.

El gesto de uno de sus dedos podía provocar la destrucción del campo entero, aniquilar a millares de hombres; mientras la suma de todas nuestras energías y voluntades no habría bastado para prolongar ni un minuto la vida de uno solo de nosotros.

We are invincible because we are the conquered, Invulnerable because already dead; We laugh at your missiles. Sit down and bargain Until your tongues are dry. If the havoc and the shame continue We'll drown you in our putrefaction.

Non ho mai capito come allora quanto sia laboriosa la morte di un uomo.

It really seemed that Edek was answering the questions that Mendel was asking himself, that he read in the depths of Mendel's brain, in that secret bed where thoughts are born. But it itsn't so strange, Mendel thought; two good clocks mark the same hour, even if they are of different make. They only have to start together.

Nel limbo di Staryje Doroghi mi sentivo sporco, stracciato, stanco, greve, estenuato dall'attesa, eppure giovane e pieno di potenze e rivolto verso l'avvenire.

Those who saw the famous film The Bridge on the River Kwai will remember the absurd zeal with which the English officer, prisoner of the Japanese, strives to build an audacious wooden bridge for them and is shocked when he realizes that the English sappers have mined it. So you see, love for a job well done is a deeply ambiguous virtue.

S? închizi între fire de sârm? ghimpat? mii de indivizi de vârste, condiÈ›ii, origini, limbi, culturi È™i obiceiuri diferite È™i s?-i supui unui regim de via?? constant, controlabil, identic pentru toÈ›i È™i mai prejos de orice necesitate e cel mai diabolic experiment pentru a stabili ce este esenÈ›ial È™i ce este dobândit în comportamentul animalului-om în lupta pentru existen??.

Strange, how in some way one always has the impression of being fortunate, how some chance happening, perhaps infinitesimal, stops us crossing the threshold of despair and allows us to live.

ora, in condizioni patologiche non è raro che la carta, secreto aziendale, venga riassorbita in misura eccessiva, e addormenti, paralizzi, o addirittura uccida l'organismo da cui è stata essudata

Vai de cel ce viseaz?: momentul conÅŸtient care însoÅ£eÅŸte trezirea este cea mai grea suferin??. Dar nu ni se întâmpl? des ÅŸi nici visele nu sunt lungi: nu suntem decât niÅŸte animale obosite.

I am the impurity that makes the zinc react, I am the grain of salt or mustard.

Nor had many words been wasted here on teaching us to defend ourselves against acids, caustics, fires and explosions: it seemed that, following the crude morality of the institute, the work of natural selection could be counted on to choose among us those most fit for physical and professional survival.