Elie Wiesel Quotes

172 Sourced Quotes

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
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
No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.

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

Elie Wiesel
I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men.

Elie Wiesel
The Holocaust is a sacred subject. One should take off one's shoes when entering its domain, one should tremble each time one pronounces the word.

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

Elie Wiesel
In the face of suffering, one has no right to turn away, not to see.

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
Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.

Elie Wiesel
Just as man cannot live without dreams, he cannot live without hope. If dreams reflect the past, hope summons the future.

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

Elie Wiesel
When you see the abyss, and we have looked into it, then what? There isn't much room at the edge – one person, another, not many. If you are there, others cannot be there. If you are there, you become a protective wall. What happens? You become part of the abyss.

Elie Wiesel
How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers end up in furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?

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
We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.

Elie Wiesel
An immoral society betrays humanity because it betrays the basis for humanity, which is memory. An immoral society deals with memory as some politicians deal with politics. A moral society is committed to memory: I believe in memory. The Greek word alethia means Truth, Things that cannot be forgotten. I believe in those things that cannot be forgotten and because of that so much in my work deals with memory... What do all my books have in common? A commitment to memory.

Elie Wiesel
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...

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

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

Elie Wiesel
We are all brothers and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive.

Elie Wiesel
We are heading towards catastrophe. I think the world is going to pieces. I am very pessimistic. Why? Because the world hasn't been punished yet, and the only punishment that could be adequate is the nuclear destruction of the world.

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

Elie Wiesel
You'll try to reveal what should remain hidden, you'll try to incite people to learn from the past and rebel, but they will refuse to believe you. They will not listen to you.... You'll possess the truth, you already do; but it's the truth of a madman.

Elie Wiesel
The sky is so close to the sea that it is difficult to tell which is reflected in the other, which one needs the other, which one is dominating the other.

Elie Wiesel
Be careful with words, they're dangerous. Be wary of them. They begat either demons or angels. It's up to you to give life to one or the other. Be careful, I tell you, nothing is as dangerous as giving free rein to words

Elie Wiesel
A recollection. The time: After the war. The place: Paris. A young man struggles to readjust to life. His mother, his father, his small sister are gone. He is alone. On the verge of despair. And yet he does not give up. On the contrary, he strives to find a place among the living. He acquires a new language. He makes a few friends who, like himself, believe that the memory of evil will serve as a shield against evil; that the memory of death will serve as a shield against death.

Elie Wiesel
Every Jew, somewhere in his being, should set apart a zone of hate -healthy virile hate- for what the German personifies and for what persists in the German.

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

Elie Wiesel