Elie Wiesel
Life belongs to man, but the meaning of life is beyond him.Collection: Men
No commandment surpasses the one concerning the liberation of hostages, for they are among the starving, the thirsting, the stripped, always in danger of death.Collection: Danger
In the beginning was belief, foolish belief, and faith, empty faith, and illusion, the terrible illusion. ... We believed in God, had faith in man, and lived with the illusion that in each one of us is a sacred spark from the fire of the shekinah, that each one carried in his eyes and in his soul the sign of God. This was the source—if not the cause—of all our misfortune.Collection: Eye
I have learned two lessons in my life: first, there are no sufficient literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy, only moral ones. Second, just as despair can come to one another only from other human beings, hope, too, can be given to one only by other human beings.Collection: Encouragement
From the depths of the mirror, a corpse gazed back at me. The look in his eyes, as they stared into mine, has never left me.Collection: Eye
Except that a human being is both the public and the private. We are both, private and public in the same person.Collection: Humans
I have an open mind - - I read, I study, I study your work and the work of other people with less talent. But that is not what I do in my writing and teaching. Still the love for the text we have in common.Collection: Teaching
A disciple came to the celebrated Master of the Good Name with a question. “Rabbi, how are we to distinguish between a true master and a fake?” And the master of the good name said, “When you meet a person who poses as a master, ask him a question: whether he knows how to purify your thoughts. If he says that he knows, then he is a fake.Collection: Names
I think [Sacrifice of Isaac] is the most important event in the Bible except for Sinai.Collection: Sacrifice
Christians call it the "Sacrifice of Isaac," and Jews call it the "Binding of Isaac."Collection: Christian
If you make a determination that [story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac] is not historical, do you throw it away? I don't think we can say whether it's precisely, scientifically historical.Collection: Determination
The story of Abraham and the sacrifice of Isaac are nowhere in any other tradition.Collection: Sacrifice
When I say it doesn't make much difference, I mean in terms of the importance of the piece of literature.Collection: Mean
If we want to know history, I would think there would be every reason to.Collection: Thinking
Go over to Greece with the Iliad and Odyssey. These have elements of history, and they have non-historical elements. It's very difficult to pull them apart. And I think there's not much reason to.Collection: Thinking
Not to remember is not an option.Collection: Remember
Occasionally, I come to moments of anguish in the text.Collection: Moments
What I do, I want to do with all my being.Collection: Want
I respect scholarship. But I don't like to do things half-heartedly.Collection: Half
As for the discipline, we [me and Frank Moore Cross] belong to two different disciplines. One involves research and archaeological materials. Mine is more interpretive. But it is the love for the text that is there, and that is what makes the whole adventure of reading and studying and sharing worthwhile.Collection: Reading
We didn't really differ [with Frank Moore Cross] because we have the same love of the text. We share that love.Collection: Share
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]Collection: Laughter
If the Book of the Law could be forgotten for so many years, who knows what was done to it during those years? Maybe it was lost later, too. And another one replaced it, and that one is no longer the original text. These are questions that perturb me much more than whether it's history or not history.Collection: Book
One thing is that [Tibetans] should not give up hope. That's - even [if] it lasts a century. My discussions with the Dalai Lama always were about that.Collection: Giving Up
Josiah has a tremendous reputation in the text. He rediscovered the Book of the Law; you remember how Hilkiah the High Priest somehow found it [2 Kings 22:8].Collection: Kings
I am much more afraid of my good deeds that please me than of my bad deeds that repel me.Collection: Please Me
I developed an anger at [Moses] Mendelssohn. Later, I read the book. I realized there was nothing subversive in it.Collection: Book
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.Collection: War
I was the accuser, God the accused. My eyes were open and I was alone - terribly alone in a world without God and without (hu)man(ity).Collection: Eye
If the victims are my problem, the killers are yours.Collection: Thought Provoking
You're at the bottom of the mountain. May you climb up without suffering.Collection: Suffering
There are real people behind the [Bible] stories.Collection: Real
Worse still is that mankind - the non-Jewish world - learned nothing from the Holocaust: The event which had no precedent in history, which should be equal to the Revelation at Sinai in significance.Collection: Holocaust
No one is as capable of gratitude as one who has escaped the kingdom of night.Collection: Gratitude
"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.Collection: Brother
For the purpose of my life, I don't ask the question. First of all, I believe. I think the Five Books of Moses are inspired. Call it divine. I don't know. But I would certainly call it inspired.Collection: Believe
Simply because, one hand, there are the haters, The hater has power. All we can do is oppose it, or one becomes an accomplice.Collection: Hands
You cross a border and the policeman or the frontier policeman look at you, What are you doing here? Why are you coming? How long will you stay? Well, if I had nearly enough years, I would write a novel about being a refugee.Collection: Writing
I imagine, like all his predecessors, Barak Obama would like to achieve greatness in bringing peace in the Middle East. I hope it will not be at the expense of Israel.Collection: Greatness
Nevertheless, we are led to believe that true words can communicate more than truth, they communicate what life is all about, that it's threatened, when it's threatened, when it's in danger, then it becomes a curse or a blessing.Collection: Believe
Man prefers to blame himself for all possible sins and crimes rather than come to the conclusion that God is capable of the most flagrant injustice. I still blush every time I think of the way God makes fun of human beings, his favorite toys.Collection: Fun
The night was gone. The morning star was shining in the sky. I too had become a completely different person. The student of the Talmud, the child that I was, had been consumed in the flames. There remained only a shape that looked like me. A dark flame had entered into my soul and devoured it.Collection: Morning
It was the beginning of the war. I was twelve years old, my parents were alive, and God still dwelt in our town.Collection: War
Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming.Collection: Dream
The Holocaust is a sacred subject. One should take off one's shoes when entering its domain, one should tremble each time one pronounces the word.Collection: Shoes
God made (human beings) because he loves stories.Collection: Thought Provoking
This day I ceased to plead. I was no longer capable of lamentation. On the contrary, I felt very strong. I was the accuser, God the accused.Collection: Strong
In my little town, Sighet, which is in Romania, Hungary-Romania, but a real shtetl, a little [Jewish] village - and we began with the Chumash [Pentateuch], probably at age four.Collection: Real
The criminal is not alone when he returns to the scene of the crime; he is joined there by his victim, and both are driven by the same curiosity: to relive that moment which stamped past and future for each.Collection: Past