Elie Wiesel: Quotes about time

Elie Wiesel was writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor. Explore interesting quotes on time.

Elie Wiesel: 310 quotes12 likes

“There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. The Talmud tells us that by saving a single human being, man can save the world.”

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

“Better that 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 at all.”

“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.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night

“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 I forget those moments that murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes.
Never shall I forget those things, even were I condemned to live as long as God Himself.
Never.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Source: Night (1960)

“Certain things, certain events, seem inexplicable only for a time: up to the moment when the veil is torn aside.”

Source: The Judges

“When I woke up, it was daylight. That is when I remembered that I had a father. During the alert, I had followed the mob, not taking care of him. I knew he was running out of strength, close to death, and yet had abandoned him.
I went to look for him.
Yet at the same time a thought crept into my mind: If only I didn't find him! If only I were relieved of this responsibility, I could use all my strength to fight for my own survival, to take care of myself…Instantly, I felt ashamed, ashamed of myself forever.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

“The absent no longer entered our thoughts. One spoke of them who knows what happened to them? but their fate was not on our minds. We were incapable of thinking. Our senses were numbed, everything was fading into a fog. We no longer clung to anything. The instincts of self-preservation, of self-defense, of pride, had all deserted us. In one terrifying moment of lucidity, I thought of us as damned souls wandering through the void, souls condemned to wander through space until the end of time, seeking redemption, seeking oblivion, without any hope of finding either.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

“From time immemorial, people have talked about peace without achieving it. Do we simply lack enough experience? Though we talk peace, we wage war. Sometimes we even wage war in the name of peace.. . . War may be too much a part of history to be eliminated—ever.”

As quoted in "Is World Peace on the Horizon?", in The Watchtower (15 April 1991)

“An SS came toward us wielding a club. He commanded:
"Men to the left! Women to the right!"
Eight words spoken quietly, indifferently, without emotion. Eight simple, short words. Yet that was the moment when I left my mother. There was no time to think, and I already felt my father's hand press against mine: we were alone.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

“The bell. It was already time to part, to go to bed. The bell regulated everything. It gave me orders and I executed them blindly. I hated that bell. Whenever I happened to dream of a better world, I imagined a universe without a bell.”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

“Time does not heal all wounds; there are those that remain painfully open.”

A Jew Today (1978)

“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.”

Interview in O : The Oprah Magazine (November 2000)

“A recollection. The time: After the war. The place: Paris. A young man struggles to readjust to life. His mother, his father, his small sister are gone. He is alone. On the verge of despair. And yet he does not give up. On the contrary, he strives to find a place among the living. He acquires a new language. He makes a few friends who, like himself, believe that the memory of evil will serve as a shield against evil; that the memory of death will serve as a shield against death.”

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

“"Yisgadal, veyiskadash, shmey raba… May His name be celebrated and sanctified…" whispered my father.
For the first time, I felt anger rising within me. Why should I sanctify His name? The Almighty, the eternal and terrible Master of the Universe, chose to be silent. What was there to thank Him for?”

Elie Wiesel book Night

Night (1960)

“When a Jew visits Jerusalem for the first time, it is not the first time; it is a homecoming.”

As quoted in "Elie Wiesel: Jerusalem is Above Politics" in Arutz Sheva (17 April 2010) http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/137057#.VwlePdcYoxA