Elie Wiesel - Night (1956)

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In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.

Elie Wiesel
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.

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

Elie Wiesel
Man asks and God replies but we don't understand his replies because they dwell in the depths of our souls and remain there until we die.

Elie Wiesel
Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

Elie Wiesel
I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.

Elie Wiesel
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.

Elie Wiesel
The yellow star?
Oh well, what of it?
You dont die of it.

Elie Wiesel
I wanted to come back to Sighet to tell you the story of my death. So that you could prepare yourselves while there was still time. To live? I don't attach any importance to my life any more. I'm alone. No, I wanted to come back, and to warn you. And see how it is, no one will listen to me.

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

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

Elie Wiesel
The stars were only sparks of the fire which devoured us. Should that fire die out one day, there would be nothing left in the sky but dead stars, dead eyes.

Elie Wiesel
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.

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
The darkness enveloped us. All I could hear was the violin and it was as if Juliek's soul had become the bow. He was playing his life...He played that which he would never play again.

Elie Wiesel
Sometimes I am asked if I know 'the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude has a response.

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
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.

Elie Wiesel
Bread, soup - these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.

Elie Wiesel
I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.

Elie Wiesel