Elie Wiesel citations

Page 2

“Il y a un État, et il est différent de tous les autres. Il est juif, et pour cela il est plus humain que n’importe quel autre.”

“Réveille-toi, lui murmurai-je à l'oreille.”

“Je ne pourrais jamais oublier Juliek. Comment pourrais-je oublier ce concert donné à un public d'agonisants et de morts! Aujourd'hui encore, lorsque j'entends jouer du Beethoven, mes yeux se ferment et, de l'obscurité, surgit le visage pâle et triste de mon camarade polonais faisant au violon ses adieux à un auditoire de mourants.”

“Madame Schächter s'était tue d'elle-même. Elle était redevenue muette, indifférente, absente et avait regagné son coin.

Nous regardions les flammes dans la nuit. Une odeur abominable flottait dans l'air. Soudain, nos portes s'ouvrirent. De curieux personnages, vêtus de vestes rayées, de pantalons noirs, sautèrent dans le wagon. Dans leurs mains, une lampe électrique et un bâton. Ils se mirent à frapper à droite et à gauche, avant de crier :

— Tout le monde descend ! Laissez tout dans le wagon ! Vite !

Nous sautâmes dehors. Je jetai un dernier regard vers madame Schächter. Son petit garçon lui tenait la main. Devant nous, ces flammes. Dans l'air, cette odeur de chair brûlée. Il devait être minuit. Nous étions arrivés. A Birkenau.”

“Quatre sages sont entrés un jour dans le verger de la connaissance interdite. L'un a regardé où il ne fallait pas, et il a perdu la raison. L'autre a regardé, et a perdu la vie. Le troisième a regardé, et a perdu la foi. Il n'y a q'un seul, Rabbi Aquiva, qui est entré et sorti en paix…”

“Only the guilty are guilty. Their children are not.”

“For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.”

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides.”

“I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?”

“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.”

“We must not see any person as an abstraction. Instead, we must see in every person a universe with its own secrets, with its own treasures, with its own sources of anguish, and with some measure of triumph.”

“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.”

“There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win.”

“I don't want my past to become anyone else's future.”

“I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it…”

“Whoever survives a test, whatever it may be, must tell the story. That is his duty.”

“Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself.”

“Indifference is the sign of sickness, a sickness of the soul more contagious than any other.”

“… 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.”

“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.”

“No human being is illegal.”

“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?”

“Love makes everything complicated.”

“In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.”

“Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.”

“I feel that books, just like people, have a destiny. Some invite sorrow, others joy, some both.”

“Music does not replace words, it gives tone to the words”

“I write to understand as much as to be understood.”

“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.”

“I am not so naïve 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.”

“[Moishe] explained to me, with great emphasis, that every question possessed a power that was lost in the answer….
And why do you pray, Moishe?' I asked him.
I pray to the God within me for the strength to ask Him the real questions.”

“The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference.”

“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.”

“I've been fighting my entire adult life for men and women everywhere to be equal and to be different. But there is one right I would not grant anyone. And that is the right to be indifferent.”