Elie Wiesel Quotes

172 Sourced Quotes

The sincere Christian knows that what died in Auschwitz was not the Jewish people but Christianity.

Elie Wiesel
Why is war such an easy option? Why does peace remain such an elusive goal? We know statesmen skilled at waging war, but where are those dedicated enough to humanity to find a way to avoid war

Elie Wiesel
Drawn to childhood, the old man will seek it in a thousand different ways.

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

Elie Wiesel
For the good of all, I say: Be careful, the brutality of the world must not be more powerful or attractive than love and friendship.

Elie Wiesel
I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake.

Elie Wiesel
Whenever an angel says "Be not afraid!" you'd better start worrying. A big assignment is on the way.

Elie Wiesel
I am not so naïve as to believe that this slim volume will change the course of history or shake the conscience of the world. Books no longer have the power they once did. Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.

Elie Wiesel
Which is better, truth that is a lie or the lie that is truth?

Elie Wiesel
But the forces of evil have not abdicated. The malevolent ghosts of hatred are resurgent with a fury and a boldness that are as astounding as they are nauseating: ethnic conflicts, religious riots, anti-Semitic incidents here, there, and everywhere. What is wrong with these morally degenerate people that they abuse their freedom, so recently won?

Elie Wiesel
Remember also that it is not knowledge but the yearning for knowledge that makes for a complete, accomplished man. Such a man does not stand still but perseveres in the face of adversity, nor does he remain untouched by the pain cause by absence. On the contrary, he recognizes himself in each cry, uttered or repressed, in the smallest rift, in the most pressing need.

Elie Wiesel
They are committing the greatest indignity human beings can inflict on one another: telling people who have suffered excruciating pain and loss that their pain and loss were illusions. (v)

Elie Wiesel
Only fanatics — in religion as well as in politics — can find a meaning in someone else's death.

Elie Wiesel
I don't believe in accidents. There are only encounters in history. There are no accidents.

Elie Wiesel
It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.

Elie Wiesel
No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has emerged from the kingdom of night.

Elie Wiesel
Not all games are innocent. Some come dangerously close to cruelty.

Elie Wiesel
Waking among the dead, one wondered if one was still alive. And yet real despair only seized us later. Afterwards. As we emerged from the nightmare and began to search for meaning.

Elie Wiesel
Every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer...

Elie Wiesel
Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.

Elie Wiesel
Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children.

Elie Wiesel
Next to him lay his violin, trampled, an eerily poignant little corpse.

Elie Wiesel
There is Israel, for us at least. What no other generation had, we have. We have Israel in spite of all the dangers, the threats and the wars, we have Israel. We can go to Jerusalem. Generations and generations could not and we can.

Elie Wiesel
From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace.... War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated—ever.

Elie Wiesel
How are we to reconcile our supreme duty towards memory with the need to forget that is essential to life? No generation has had to confront this paradox with such urgency. The survivors wanted to communicate everything to the living: the victim's solitude and sorrow, the tears of mothers driven to madness, the prayers of the doomed beneath a fiery sky.

Elie Wiesel