Elie Wiesel
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.Collection: Women
Hope is like peace. It is not a gift from God. It is a gift only we can give one another.Collection: God
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest.Collection: Time
Just as despair can come to one only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.Collection: Hope
Religion is a very personal thing for me. Religion has its good moments and its poor moments.Collection: Religion
In Jewish history there are no coincidences.Collection: History
Without memory, there is no culture. Without memory, there would be no civilization, no society, no future.Collection: Future
I have not lost faith in God. I have moments of anger and protest. Sometimes I've been closer to him for that reason.Collection: Faith
When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude.Collection: Attitude
I decided to devote my life to telling the story because I felt that having survived I owe something to the dead. and anyone who does not remember betrays them again.Collection: Death
I don't know much about politics, and I don't want to know. That's why I rarely involve myself in politics.Collection: Politics
Because of indifference, one dies before one actually dies.Collection: Death
Some stories are true that never happened.Collection: Imagination
What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It's close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.Collection: Knowledge
It all happened so fast. The ghetto. The deportation. The sealed cattle car. The fiery altar upon which the history of our people and the future of mankind were meant to be sacrificed.Collection: History
The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.Collection: Love
No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them.Collection: Faith
Look, if I were alone in the world, I would have the right to choose despair, solitude and self-fulfillment. But I am not alone.Collection: Alone
Mankind must remember that peace is not God's gift to his creatures; peace is our gift to each other.Collection: Peace
Religion is not man's relationship to God, it is man's relationship to man.Collection: Relationship
Most people think that shadows follow, precede or surround beings or objects. The truth is that they also surround words, ideas, desires, deeds, impulses and memories.Collection: Truth
When a person doesn't have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity.Collection: Thankful
I was very, very religious. And of course I wrote about it in 'Night.' I questioned God's silence. So I questioned. I don't have an answer for that. Does it mean that I stopped having faith? No. I have faith, but I question it.Collection: Faith
After all, God is God because he remembers.Collection: God
Human beings should be held accountable. Leave God alone. He has enough problems.Collection: God
Friendship marks a life even more deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never anything but sharing.Collection: Love
I wanted to write a commentary on the Bible, to write about the Talmud, about celebration, about the great eternal subjects: love and happiness.Collection: Happiness
Peace is our gift to each other.Collection: Peace
I'm a teacher and a writer; my life is words. When I see the denigration of language, it hurts me, and it's easy to denigrate a word by trivializing it.Collection: Teacher
Because I remember, I despair. Because I remember, I have the duty to reject despair.Collection: Moving
No one may speak for the dead, no one may interpret their mutilated dreams and visions.Collection: Dreams
I marvel at the resilience of the Jewish people. Their best characteristic is their desire to remember. No other people has such an obsession with memory.Collection: Best
Once you bring life into the world, you must protect it. We must protect it by changing the world.Collection: Life
I do not recall a Jewish home without a book on the table.Collection: Home
I would like to see real peace and a state of Israel living peacefully alongside a state of Palestine.Collection: Peace
For me, every hour is grace. And I feel gratitude in my heart each time I can meet someone and look at his or her smile.Collection: Smile
You would be amazed at the number of doors a Nobel Prize opens.
Language failed me very often, but then, the substitute for me was silence, but not violence.
I never teach the same course twice.
When I was young I lost everything.
I've given my life to the principle and the ideal of memory, and remembrance.
For me, every hour is grace.
The Bible is not only laws, it's also stories.
The Bible is not only laws, it's also stories. It begins, 'In the beginning God created Heaven.' If I had written these words, I wouldn't have written anything else; it's just enough.
For in my tradition, as a Jew, I believe that whatever we receive we must share.
That is my major preoccupation, memory, the kingdom of memory. I want to protect and enrich that kingdom, glorify that kingdom and serve it.
I believe in superstitions. You don't talk about a child who hasn't been born.
When did I learn the Bible? When I was four or five years old. It's still the pull of my childhood, a fascination with the vanished world, and I can find everything except that world.
There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred are there. Only you don't see them.
I write to understand as much as to be understood.