“We tried. It was not easy. At first, because of the language; language failed us. We would have to invent a new vocabulary, for our own words were inadequate, anemic. And then too, the people around us refused to listen; and even those who listened refused to believe; and even those who believed could not comprehend. Of course they could not. Nobody could. The experience of the camps defies comprehension.”

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We tried. It was not easy. At first, because of the language; language failed us. We would have to invent a new vocabul…" by Elie Wiesel?

Elie Wiesel155

writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and … 1928–2016

Related quotes

“Even trained for years as they all had been in precision of language, what words could you use which would give another the experience of sunshine?”

Lois Lowry book The Giver

Source: The Giver

“In the New Testament our enemies are those who harbor hostility against us, not those against whom we cherish hostility. For Jesus refuses to reckon with such a possibility.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

Source: Discipleship (1937), The Enemy, the "Extraordinary", pp. 147-148.

“Freedom lurked around us and I understood, at last, that he could help us be free if we would listen, that he would never be free until we did.”

James Baldwin book Sonny's Blues

Source: Sonny's Blues

“A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein book Philosophical Investigations

Source: Philosophical Investigations

“If language is a virus from space, even people could be disguised aliens on our planet, because language is inextricably bound to human mental processes, in the forms of our intelligence, to the extent that symbolic language is what makes us different from other living beings.”

Caterina Davinio (1957) Italian writer

Source: Virtual Mercury House. Planetary & Interplanetary Events, p. 48

“It isn't always the middle-aged who refuse to listen, who will not even try to understand another point of view.”

Madeleine L'Engle (1918–2007) American writer

Section 2.5 
The Crosswicks Journal, A Circle of Quiet (1972)
Context: It isn't always the middle-aged who refuse to listen, who will not even try to understand another point of view. One boy would not get it through his head that for all adults God is not an old man in a white beard sitting on a cloud. As far as this boy was concerned, this old gentleman was the adult's god, and therefore he did not believe in God.

“If we are to believe he is really alive with all that that implies, then we have to believe without proof. And of course that is the only way it could be. If it could be somehow proved, then we would have no choice but to believe. We would lose our freedom not to believe. And in the very moment that we lost that freedom, we would cease to be human beings. Our love of God would have been forced upon us, and love that is forced is of course not love at all. Love must be freely given. Love must live in the freedom not to love; it must take risks. Love must be prepared to suffer even as Jesus on the Cross suffered, and part of that suffering is doubt.”

Frederick Buechner (1926) Poet, novelist, short story writer, theologian

The Magnificent Defeat (1966)

“We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human

“Apparently, there was dissension even among those beings who we could account as gods.”

Philip José Farmer (1918–2009) American science fiction writer

Source: The Riverworld series, The Magic Labyrinth (1980), Ch. 19
Context: According to Burton, the Ethical who talked to him did not agree with his fellows. Apparently, there was dissension even among those beings who we could account as gods. Dispute or discord in Olympus, if I may draw such a parallel. Though I do not think that the so-called Ethicals are gods, angels, or demons. They are human beings like us but advanced to a higher ethical plane. What their disagreement is, I frankly do not know. Perhaps it is about the means used to achieve a goal.

“None of the widely touted new technologies and weapons systems "would have helped me in the last three years [in Iraq and Afghanistan]. But I could have used cultural training [and] language training. I could have used more products from American universities [who] understood the world does not revolve around America and [who] embrace coalitions and allies for all of the strengths that they bring us."”

James Mattis (1950) 26th and current United States Secretary of Defense; United States Marine Corps general

Speaking at a professional conference on military transformation, urging the Pentagon to invest in efforts that would "diminish the conditions that drive people to sign up for these kinds of insurgencies." Breaking the Warrior Code (February 2005) http://spectator.org/archives/2005/02/11/breaking-the-warrior-code

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Elie Wiesel155

Related quotes

Related topics