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33b4ee4
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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.
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hate
love
philosophy
inspirational
opposite
indifference
activism
apathy
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Elie Wiesel |
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a91b188
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Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.
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Elie Wiesel |
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cb47806
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To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.
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Elie Wiesel |
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d4d2995
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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.
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Elie Wiesel |
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2a9fabb
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We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must - at that moment - become the center of the universe.
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Elie Wiesel |
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af342ba
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If the only prayer you say throughout your life is "Thank You," then that will be enough.
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inspirational
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Elie Wiesel |
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54b0c6a
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I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.
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Elie Wiesel |
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195bb6c
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Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out, swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing... And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes. And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still red, his eyes not yet ..
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Elie Wiesel |
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e2cd2b9
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For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.
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Elie Wiesel |
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17d63bd
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For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.
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history
philosophy
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Elie Wiesel |
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1180482
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I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?
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Elie Wiesel |
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c418dec
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Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must -- at that moment -- become the center of the universe.
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human-rights
responsibility
inspirational
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Elie Wiesel |
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003fa7f
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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.
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Elie Wiesel |
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edfe1ed
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One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live.
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Elie Wiesel |
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0c6277a
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His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily: "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."
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Elie Wiesel |
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d03aecf
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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)
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Elie Wiesel |
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34ab4f2
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There's a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don't lose courage. You've already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now, muster your strength, and don't lose heart. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will keep death away from yourselves. Hell is not for eternity. And now, a prayer - or rather, a piece of advice: let there be comradeship among you. We..
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holocaust
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Elie Wiesel |
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d3dc912
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He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer.
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questions
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Elie Wiesel |
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d511aab
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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.
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Elie Wiesel |
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470e28e
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I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it...
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Elie Wiesel |
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3c42c87
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I believe it important to emphasize how strongly I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.
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Elie Wiesel |
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7edcb86
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Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, that turned my life into one long night seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget the nocturnal silence that deprived me for all eternity of the desire to live. Never shall ..
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faith
holocaust
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Elie Wiesel |
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8a1c49d
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Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.
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Elie Wiesel |
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e1f905a
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My faceless neighbor spoke up: "Don't be deluded. Hitler has made it clear that he will annihilate all Jews before the clock strikes twelve." I exploded: "What do you care what he said? Would you want us to consider him a prophet? His cold eyes stared at me. At last he said, wearily: "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people."
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history
genocide
holocaust
hitler
jews
germany
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Elie Wiesel |
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59a540d
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It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings--his last hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again...When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse.
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Elie Wiesel |
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08e0d84
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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?
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Elie Wiesel |
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b640800
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In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.
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illusion
trust
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Elie Wiesel |
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47ac3ab
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Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because he kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among ..
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Elie Wiesel |
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93c72e9
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I am not so naive 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.
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Elie Wiesel |
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b28c0b3
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But because of his telling, many who did not believe have come to believe, and some who did not care have come to care. He tells the story, out of infinite pain, partly to honor the dead, but also to warn the living - to warn the living that it could happen again and that it must never happen again. Better than 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 ..
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Elie Wiesel |
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4cb1279
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We cannot indefinitely avoid depressing subject matter, particularly it it is true, and in the subsequent quarter century the world has had to hear a story it would have preferred not to hear - the story of how a cultured people turned to genocide, and how the rest of the world, also composed of cultured people, remained silent in the face of genocide. (v)
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Elie Wiesel |
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8e275cc
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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.
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hunger
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Elie Wiesel |
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9f3e65a
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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.
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wiesel
holocaust
night
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Elie Wiesel |
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67246d5
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Why do you pray?" he asked me, after a moment. Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe? "I don't know why," I said, even more disturbed and ill at ease. "I don't know why." After that day I saw him often. He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer. "Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating. "That is ..
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relationship
revelation
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Elie Wiesel |
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91654b6
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Never shall I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
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Elie Wiesel |
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4157519
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And I, the former mystic, was thinking: Yes, man is stronger, greater than God. When Adam and Eve deceived You, You chased them from paradise. When You were displeased by Noah's generation, You brought down the Flood. When Sodom lost Your favour, You caused the heavens to rain down fire and damnation. But look at these men whom You have betrayed, allowing them to be tortured, slaughtered, gassed, and burned, what do they do? They pray befor..
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Elie Wiesel |
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f8e6aa5
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I still believe in man in spite of man. I believe in language even though it has been wounded, deformed, and perverted by the enemies of mankind. And I continue to cling to words because it is up to us to transform them into instruments of comprehension rather than contempt. It is up to us to choose whether we wish to use them to curse or to heal, to wound or to console.
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humanity
hope
language
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Elie Wiesel |
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47d72ef
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Only fanatics -- in religion as well as in politics -- can find a meaning in someone else's death.
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Elie Wiesel |
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3c87b1e
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And what is a friend? More than a father, more than a brother: a traveling companion, with him, you can conquer the impossible, even if you must lose it later. Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing. It is a friend that you communicate the awakening of a desire, the birth of a vision or a terror, the anguish of seeing the sun disappear or of findin..
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Elie Wiesel |
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9538ca3
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Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.
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Elie Wiesel |
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19c63a8
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Everybody around us was weeping. Someone began to recite Kaddish, the prayer for the dead. I don't know whether, during the history of the Jewish people, men have ever before recited Kaddish for themselves.
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Elie Wiesel |
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5e9c392
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It is obvious that the war which Hitler and his accomplices waged was a war not only against Jewish men, women, and children, but also against Jewish religion, Jewish culture, Jewish tradition, therefore Jewish memory.
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jewish-tradition
holocaust
jews
jewish
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Elie Wiesel |
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cb538d1
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Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
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Elie Wiesel |
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ad55a37
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The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria...
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suffering
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Elie Wiesel |