Quotes About Resilience

Fear thrives strongest; there is no telling how little we would be without having suffered fear. An intrinsic characteristic of humanity is the tendency to give in to fear. No fear is lost, but its hiding places are a riddle. Perhaps, of all things, fear is the one that changes least.

Se muere con demasiada facilidad. Morir debería ser mucho más difícil. PDH

Quando si viaggia, si prende tutto come viene, lo sdegno rimane a casa. Si osserva, si ascolta, ci si entusiasma per le cose più atroci solo perché sono nuove. I buoni viaggiatori sono gente senza cuore.

One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.

There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.

Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.

Better that one heart be broken a thousand times in the retelling, he has decided, if it means that a thousand other hearts need not be broken at all.

We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything--death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.

I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.

I believe in God--in spite of God! I believe in Mankind--in spite of Mankind! I believe in the Future--in spite of the Past!

The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria...

Even in darkness it is possible to create light and encourage compassion. That it is possible to feel free inside a prison. That even in exile, friendship exists and can become an anchor. That one instant before dying, man is still immortal.

Bite your lips, little brother...Don't cry. Keep your anger, your hate, for another day, for later. The day will come but not now...Wait. Clench your teeth and wait...

This day I ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused.

We have to go into the despair and go beyond it, by working and doing for somebody else, by using it for something else.

A man can laugh while he suffers.

There are moments when I think it will never end, that it will last indefinitely. It's like the rain. Here the rain, like everything else, suggests permanence and eternity. I say to myself: it's raining today and it's going to rain tomorrow and the next day, the next week and the next century.

You're at the bottom of the mountain. May you climb up without suffering.

In those dark times, one rose to the very heights of humanity by simply remaining human.

Had the situation not been so tragic, we might have laughed.

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

Torture is the act of making someone die a slow death, making the prisoner die several times.

How was one to rehabilitate and transform words betrayed and perverted by the enemy?

What is abnormal is that I am normal. That I survived the Holocaust and went on to love beautiful girls, to talk, to write, to have toast and tea and live my life—that is what is abnormal.