Elie Wiesel
Tibet, why is it occupied? For political reasons maybe they have a reason. I don't know. But religiously, why? The fact that the religious community is being oppressed and persecuted is something that every single person in the world who has any religious faith and religious feeling for - for people who have faith should speak up.Collection: Religious
Today again the teacher is the important thing, but on the other hand anti-Semitism is growing today. No doubt about it. All over the world, especially in Europe, and it's true they begin with anti-Israeli attitudes and then it's so strong that it runs over and becomes anti-Semitic.Collection: Running
Not all games are innocent. Some come dangerously close to cruelty.Collection: Games
A man who is fighting for the future of mankind is not waiting for torture, he's waiting for -- the Revolution.Collection: Fighting
I was involved in trying to save the Rwandan people and Sudan now. It's a mass murder. Mass murder is a terrifying word. We don't have to go further than that. Cambodia came close to, but what was it, Cambodians killing Cambodians after all. So therefore I think we should be very careful with vocabulary.Collection: Thinking
I remember one day I came home and shouted to my grandmother, "Grandma, Sarah is pregnant!" Poor Sarah! For weeks before I had read how difficult it was for her to get pregnant. "Grandma! I have news for you!" "What did you learn?" "I have news, Grandma: Sarah is pregnant!" [Genesis 16 - 21].Collection: Grandma
My students are very special. They are my source of pride, my source of joy, my source of hope. I am terribly fond of my students.Collection: Pride
Had the situation not been so tragic, we might have laughed.Collection: Might
Tibet's a tragedy. It's an insult to human decency.Collection: Tragedy
Humanity would never tolerate itCollection: Humanity
I'm not a military man. I wish I were, then maybe I could give some advice.Collection: Military
All I hope is that the American coalition is doing its best to prevent civilian casualties and the killing of innocent people.Collection: People
Just as there are predatory birds, so there are predatory ideas: I came under their spell. . . .Just as the survivors say that no one will ever understand the victims, what I must tell you is that you will never understand the executioners.Collection: Ideas
Man’s strength resides in his capacity and desire to elevate himself, so as to attain the good. To travel step by step toward the heights. And that is all he can do. To reach heaven and remain there is beyond his powers: Even Moses had to return to earth. Is it the same for evil?Collection: Men
I think [teacher] is the noblest profession.Collection: Teacher
I'm not a political person, and their ambitions are not mine. They want power. I don't want power.Collection: Ambition
I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men.Collection: Farewell
I have tried to keep memory alive... I have tried to fight those who would forget. Because if we forget, we are guilty, we are accomplices.Collection: Memories
Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to life as long as God himselfCollection: Night
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.Collection: Memories
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.Collection: Memories
I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?Collection: World
After my father's death, nothing could touch me any more.Collection: Father
I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it . . .Collection: Believe
For me [Patriarchs] exist. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob exist today. They are people that you see with white beards. I have no doubt of their existence.Collection: White
What is Scripture? The Hebrew word is torah. Torah means teaching, learning.Collection: Teaching
My teachers [ had the most impact in my life]. Of course, my father and grandfather, but after my family, my teachers.Collection: Teacher
I think those governments who resent religion, they're afraid of religion because religion may be in their eyes, in their views be seen as a counter government or a parallel government.Collection: Eye
I think so. 9/11 has been a turning point in American history, there's no doubt about that.Collection: Thinking
Whatever you think in life... think higher and feel deeper.Collection: Positivity
Fanaticism is the greatest threat today. Literally, the 21st century threatened by fanatics, and we have fanatics in every religion, unfortunately, and what can we do against them? Words nothing else, I'm against violence but only words.Collection: Today
did everything I could in my life to be immune to hatred, because hatred is a cancer.Collection: Cancer
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.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Daughter
Indifference elicits no response. Indifference is not a response. Indifference is not a beginning; it is an end. And, therefore, indifference is always the friend of the enemy, for it benefits the aggressor - never his victim, whose pain is magnified when he or she feels forgotten.Collection: Pain
If anyone had told us in 1945 that there are certain battles we'll have to fight again we wouldn't have believed it. Racism, anti-Semitism, starvation of children and, who would have believed that? At least I was convinced then, naively, that at least something happened in history that, because of myself, certain things cannot happen again.Collection: Children
Yet another last night. The last night at home, the last night in the ghetto, the last night in the train, and, now, the last night in Buna. How much longer were our lives to be dragged out from one 'last night' to another?Collection: Home
I may be a descendant of Seth. I say to myself, What does [the story of Cain and Abel] teach me? So I go back to all the interpretations in the Talmud, which to me are a source of pleasure and joy. Then I say, maybe this story is not for then; maybe it's for now! It's possible for brothers to kill one another in civil wars. But most important, whoever kills, kills his brother. That's a moral conclusion that may not be there; but that must be my conclusion. Otherwise, why read it? Whoever kills, kills his brother.Collection: Brother
I make a difference between genocide and Holocaust. Holocaust was mainly Jewish, that was the only people, to the last Jew, sentenced to die for one reason, for being Jewish, that's all.Collection: Differences
The world? The world is not interested in us. Today, everything is possible, even the crematoria.Collection: Today
I have a tremendous respect for Professor [Frank Moore] Cross.Collection: Crosses
Judaism is in a sense a Rabbinic, Talmudic religion, rather than a Biblical religion.Collection: Biblical
As you know, I describe Shirat ha-Yam as part of an epic story that has qualities of history and which also has qualities of the mythological, of an epic.Collection: Epic
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.Collection: Prayer
The Holocaust is the most documented tragedy in recorded history. And therefore, later on, if there will be a later on, anyone wishing to know will know where to go for knowledge.Collection: Holocaust
Politicians, they give the visible aspect of the change, but the change, the root, the anchor are in young people.Collection: Anchors
It was like a page torn from a history book, from some historical novel about the captivity of babylon or Spanish Inquisition.Collection: Book
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.Collection: Dream