Elie Wiesel Quotes

None of us is in a position to eliminate war, but it is our obligation to denounce it and expose it in all its hideousness. War leaves no victors, only victims.

Did I write it so as not to go mad or, on the contrary, to go mad in order to understand the nature of madness?

You shouldn’t act as a spokesperson for someone who’s trying to impose his will on you.

With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory I oppose the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don't think it's human to become an agent of the angel of death.

Holy War is a contradiction of terms.

The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, and so are you.

Human beings all change. Not what they are but who they are. We have the power to change what we do with our life and turn it into our destiny.

First we must understand that there can be no life without risk - and when our center is strong, everything else is secondary, even the risks.

That [Exodus] occurred, I have no doubt.

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

The Vietnam War ended because of the campus situation. And so many other injustices have been corrected in the World today only thanks to the young people. So, young people especially have a responsibility for Tibet.

Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love.

Of course, afterward, I studied [commentary on the Bible by a Rabbi Moshe Dessauer] more closely. But, in truth, it doesn't touch me. It doesn't change my attitude toward the text.

It's not only America. Terrorism now is a threat to the whole world.

John XXI was a very great pope and he's the one who actually corrected the liturgy. He did so because of his friend Jules Isaac, a French Jewish historian who was a friend of John Paul, of John 23rd, and he convinced him and he changed the liturgy, no more Jew, the perfidious Jew and so forth and now, and don't speak any more of the Jews killing Christ. Things have changed.

I was working as a journalist for an Israeli paper in Paris, and my salary at the highest was fifty dollars a month. At the end of the month I always had palpitations; I didn't know how to pay my rent. Even after the war, I was often hungry. But that's part of the romantic condition of a student. To be a student in Paris and not be hungry is wrong.

Except if it has some historical meaning for them to have Tibet under their control. I don't understand why [ Chinese] want it so much.

It was the beginning of the war. I was twelve years old, my parents were alive, and God still dwelt in our town.

I will say, with memoir, you must be honest. You must be truthful.

I come from a very religious background.And actually I remained in it. All my anger I describe in my quarrels with God in Auschwitz, but you know I used to pray every day.

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.

One person of integrity can make a difference.

We know, for instance, of "The Book of the Wars of the Lord." It is mentioned in the text [Numbers 21:14]. There was a book: Where is it? One day you will dig and you will maybe find it. [Laughter]

Words can sometimes, in moments of grace, attain the quality of deeds.

"Am I my brother's keeper?" There you have the whole Biblical understanding that you are your brother's keeper. You also have a whole other understanding in which you are not your brother's keeper. And I've heard some extremely bright people take this position.

Anything you want to say about God you better make sure you can say in front of a pit of burning babies.

My faith is a wounded faith, but my life is not without faith. I didn't divorce God, but I'm quarrelling and arguing and questioning, it's a wounded faith.

Will you join me in hearing the case for keeping weapons from those who preach death to Israel and America?

you can do something. You can, even for one person Don't turn away; help. Because those who suffer, often suffer not because of the person or the group that inflicts the suffering; they seem to suffer because nobody cares.

I think that human beings are capable of the worst things possible and they show that there were times, and there probably are times, that it is human to be inhuman.

One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live.

I've been fighting my entire adult life for men and women everywhere to be equal and to be different. But there is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent.

Take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

It was like a page torn from a history book, from some historical novel about the captivity of babylon or Spanish Inquisition.

The Bible is interpreted by the Talmud. Except, in Rabbinic tradition, a Talmudic law has the weight of the Biblical law. Sometimes we say in a prayer, "Blessed are Thou, O God, who has ordered us and commended us," to do something. But you don't find that "something" in the Bible; you find it in the Talmud. So Talmudic law becomes as important as Biblical law.

Weapons means killing. Weapons is ah, I'm simply sensitive to the word.

'Indifference to evil is equal to evil' because it strengthens people.

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it's indifference.

Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to life as long as God himself

Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.

Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Whenever men or women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.

In the concentration camps, we discovered this whole universe where everyone had his place. The killer came to kill, and the victims came to die.

Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming.

Tibet's a tragedy. It's an insult to human decency.

When has religion ever been unifying? Religion has introduced many wars in this world, enough bloodshed and violence.

I personally have no doubt that the Exodus occurred. How it occurred, I don't know.

A man can laugh while he suffers.

[ Rabbi Shlomo ben Isaac] was the greatest commentator [of the Bible] we ever had.