Quotes from Dawn

Elie Wiesel ·  81 pages

Rating: (11.4K votes)


“Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning. The tragedy of man is that he doesn't know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“I needed to know that there was such a thing as love and that it brought smiles and joy in its wake.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking, loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“There are moments when I think it will never end, that it will last indefinitely. It's like the rain. Here the rain, like everything else, suggests permanence and eternity. I say to myself: it's raining today and it's going to rain tomorrow and the next day, the next week and the next century.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“It was the beginning of the war. I was twelve years old, my parents were alive, and God still dwelt in our town.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn



“The silence of two people is deeper than the silence of one.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“A man hates his enemy because he hates his own hate.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“Where is God to be found? In suffering or in rebellion? When is a man most truly a man? When he submits or when he refuses? Where does suffering lead him? To purification or to bestiality?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“The night lifted, leaving behind it a grayish light the color of stagnant water. Soon there was only a tattered fragment of darkness, hanging in mid-air, the other side of the window. Fear caught my throat. The tattered fragment of darkness had a face. The face was my own.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“Love is this and love is that; man is born to love; he is only alive when he is in the presence of a woman he loves or should love.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn



“The tragedy of man is that he doesn’t know how to distinguish between day and night.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“Night is purer than day; it is better for thinking and loving and dreaming. At night everything is more intense, more true. The echo of words that have been spoken during the day takes on a new and deeper meaning.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“A mn ages hs enemy because he hates his own hate. He says to himself: I hate him not because he's my enemy, not because he hates me, but because he arouses me to hate.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“You are the sum total of all that we have been,” said the youngster who looked like my former self. “In a way we are the ones to execute John Dawson. Because you can’t do it without us. Now, do you see?” I was beginning to understand. An act so absolute as that of killing involves not only the killer but, as well, those who have formed him. In murdering a man I was making them murderers.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“How are we ever to disarm evil and abolish death as a means to an end?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn



“How are we ever to disarm evil and abolish death as a means to an end? How are we ever to break the cycle of violence and rage? Can terror coexist with justice? Does murder call for murder, despair for revenge? Can hate engender anything but hate? The”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“There is nothing sacred, nothing uplifting, in hatred or in death. In”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“man is born to love; he is only alive when he is in the presence of a woman he loves or should love. I”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“The condemned man’s traditional last meal is a joke,” I said loudly, “a joke in the worst possible taste, an insult to the corpse that he is about to be. What does a man care if he dies with an empty stomach?” The”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“As a child I was afraid of death. I was not afraid to die, but every time I thought of death I shuddered.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn



“She is gazing out into the night, and the night has a thousand eyes, which are mine.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“Soon there was only a tattered fragment of darkness, hanging in midair, the other side of the window. Fear caught my throat. The tattered fragment of darkness had a face. Looking at it, I understood the reason for my fear. The face was my own.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“Beggars inspired me with mingled feelings of love and fear. I knew that I ought to be kind to them, for they might not be what they seemed.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“The tragedy of man is that he doesn’t know how to distinguish between day and night. He says things at night that should only be said by day.” He”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“I’m going to teach you the art of distinguishing between day and night. Always look at a window, and failing that look into the eyes of a man. If you see a face, any face, then you can be sure that night has succeeded day. For, believe me, night has a face.” Then,”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn



“Where is God to be found? In suffering or in rebellion? When is a man most truly a man? When he submits or when he refuses? Where does suffering lead him? To purification or to bestiality?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“The revolver was black and nearly new. I was afraid to even touch it, for in it lay all the whole difference between what I was and what I was going to be.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“Dawn is purely a work of fiction, but I wrote it to look at myself in a new way. Obviously I did not live this tale, but I was implicated in its ethical dilemma from the moment that I assumed my character’s place.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


“So I wrote this novel in order to explore distant memories and buried doubts: What would have become of me if I had spent not just one year in the camps, but two or four? If I had been appointed kapo? Could I have struck a friend? Humiliated an old man? And”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Dawn


About the author

Elie Wiesel
Born place: in Sighet, Romania
Born date September 30, 1928
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Dear Die-ary, today I stuffed some dolls full of dead rats I put in the blender. I'm wondering if, maybe, there really is something wrong with me.”
― Jhonen Vásquez, quote from Johnny the Homicidal Maniac: Director's Cut


“All of this vain heartbreak that we cling to as important or tragic would one day be revealed - by TV scientists - for what it is: just behavior.”
― Arthur Phillips, quote from The Song Is You


“He has a roar like a lion,” some cat commented from behind Jayfeather. “Then I’ll call him Lion’s Roar,” Shy Fawn murmured proudly. No, Jayfeather thought. This is Lionblaze. Welcome, brother.”
― Erin Hunter, quote from Sign of the Moon


“His face is like a waxwork, and I realize suddenly with startling clarity that the body and the person are two different things. Two different entities, somehow fused. The body is the one I am looking at now, attached to all these machines, the heart still struggling to pump, the lungs still struggling to breathe, valiantly fighting to stay alive. The person is another being entirely, the perpetrator of this crime, the one who ruthlessly swallowed forty tablets sometime in the middle of the night, then lay down beside his girlfriend to die. The person tried to kill itself, tried to kill its own body. I understand for the first time why attempted suicide used to be an imprisonable offence. It is, after all, attempted murder. The person against the body.”
― Tabitha Suzuma, quote from A Voice in the Distance


“Every morning I was renewed, though. Air and light healed me, over and over. I got to where I depended on it. When I was feeling my worst, I would step out into the yard and put my hands on the branches of the little redbud. It made me feel like I was saying a prayer, to do this. I know that sounds like foolishness, but that little tree was like an altar for me. I stood there in the cold of early winter, wishing for the redbud to bear leaves so that I might put my face against them.”
― Silas House, quote from A Parchment of Leaves


Interesting books

The Caine Mutiny
(17.6K)
The Caine Mutiny
by Herman Wouk
We Were the Mulvaneys
(83.6K)
We Were the Mulvaney...
by Joyce Carol Oates
Hinds' Feet on High Places
(38.2K)
Hinds' Feet on High...
by Hannah Hurnard
The Constant Gardener
(17.6K)
The Constant Gardene...
by John le Carré
Lost Souls
(15.2K)
Lost Souls
by Poppy Z. Brite
Half Bad
(35.8K)
Half Bad
by Sally Green

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.