Primo Levi - Years Quotes

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Human memory is a marvelous but fallacious instrument. The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to become erased as the years go by, but often they change, or even increase by incorporating extraneous features.

Primo Levi

In countries and epochs in which communication is impeded, soon all other liberties wither; discussion dies by inanition, ignorance of the opinion of others becomes rampant, imposed opinions triumph. The well-known example of this is the crazy genetics preached in the USSR by Lysenko, which in the absence of discussion (his opponents were exiled to Siberia) compromised the harvests for twenty years. Intolerance is inclined to censor, and censorship promotes ignorance of the arguments of others and thus intolerance itself: a rigid, vicious circle that is hard to break.

Primo Levi

Beware of analogies: for millenia they corrupted medicine, and it may be their fault that today's pedagogical systems are so numerous, and after three thousand years of argument we still don't know which is best.

Primo Levi

Twenty billion years before now, Brilliant, soaring in space and time There was a ball of flame, solitary, eternal, Our common father and our executioner. It exploded, and every change began. Even now the thin echo of this one reverse catastrophe Resounds from the furthest reaches.

Primo Levi