“Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed....Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out,
swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...
And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.
And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still
red, his eyes not yet extinguished.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows..."
That night, the soup tasted of corpses.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“For in the end, it is all about memory, its sources and its magnitude, and, of course, its consequences.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“I shall always remember that smile. From what world did it come from?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“One more stab to the heart, one more reason to hate. One less reason to live.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“His cold eyes stared at me. At last, he said wearily: "I have more faith in Hitler than in anyone else. He alone has kept his promises, all his promises, to the Jewish people.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“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. (v)”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“There's a long road of suffering ahead of you. But don't lose courage. You've already escaped the gravest danger: selection. So now, muster your strength, and don't lose heart. We shall all see the day of liberation. Have faith in life. Above all else, have faith. Drive out despair, and you will keep death away from yourselves. Hell is not for eternity. And now, a prayer - or rather, a piece of advice: let there be comradeship among you. We are all brothers, and we are all suffering the same fate. The same smoke floats over all our heads. Help one another. It is the only way to survive.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“One day when I was able to get up, I decided to look at myself in the mirror on the opposite wall. I had not seen myself since the ghetto. From the depths of the mirror, a corpse was contemplating me. The look in his eyes as he gazed at me has never left me.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“He explained to me with great insistence that every question posessed a power that did not lie in the answer.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it…”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“...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.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“It was pitch dark. I could hear only the violin, and it was as though Juliek's soul were the bow. He was playing his life. The whole of his life was gliding on the strings--his last hopes, his charred past, his extinguished future. He played as he would never play again...When I awoke, in the daylight, I could see Juliek, opposite me, slumped over, dead. Near him lay his violin, smashed, trampled, a strange overwhelming little corpse.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“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?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from 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, quote from Night
“Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“Blessed be God's name? Why, but why would I bless Him? Every fiber in me rebelled. Because He caused thousands of children to burn in His mass graves? Because he kept six crematoria working day and night, including Sabbath and the Holy Days? Because in His great might, He had created Auschwitz, Birkenau, Buna, and so many other factories of death? How could I say to Him: Blessed be Thou, Almighty, Master of the Universe, who chose us among all nations to be tortured day and night, to watch as our fathers, our mothers, our brothers, end up in the furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“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.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“But because of his telling, many who did not believe have come to believe, and some who did not care have come to care. He tells the story, out of infinite pain, partly to honor the dead, but also to warn the living - to warn the living that it could happen again and that it must never happen again. Better than 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. (vi)”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“We cannot indefinitely avoid depressing subject matter, particularly it it is true, and in the subsequent quarter century the world has had to hear a story it would have preferred not to hear - the story of how a cultured people turned to genocide, and how the rest of the world, also composed of cultured people, remained silent in the face of genocide. (v)”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“[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.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“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, quote from Night
“We were masters of nature, masters of the world. We had forgotten everything--death, fatigue, our natural needs. Stronger than cold or hunger, stronger than the shots and the desire to die, condemned and wandering, mere numbers, we were the only men on earth.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
“Why do you pray?" he asked me, after a moment.
Why did I pray? A strange question. Why did I live? Why did I breathe?
"I don't know why," I said, even more disturbed and ill at ease. "I don't know why."
After that day I saw him often. He explained to me with great insistence that every question possessed a power that did not lie in the answer. "Man raises himself toward God by the questions he asks Him," he was fond of repeating. "That is the true dialogue. Man questions God and God answers. But we don't understand His answers. We can't understand them. Because they come from the depths of the soul, and they stay there until death. You will find the true answers, Eliezer, only within yourself!"
"And why do you pray, Moshe?" I asked him. "I pray to the God within me that He will give me the strength to ask Him the right questions.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from Night
Elie Wiesel
Born place: in Sighet, Romania
Born date September 30, 1928
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“How do you find out if there are shadowy forces manipulating people’s minds? You find a clean template, and make a before-and-after comparison.”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, quote from The Quantum Thief
“Lupin, like Mr. Huttle, has original and sometimes wonderful ideas; but it is those ideas that are so dangerous. They make men extremely rich or extremely poor. They make or break men. I always feel people are happier who live a simple unsophisticated life. I believe I am happy because I am not ambitious.”
― George Grossmith, quote from The Diary of a Nobody
“Não me cantem canções da luz do dia / Pois o sol é o inimigo dos amantes / Cantem das sombras e da escuridão / E das lembranças da meia-noite.”
― Sidney Sheldon, quote from Memories of Midnight
“I'd met people in my life who were pure poison. I had learnt to know the look of them - the way their smiles came and went and never touched their eyes, those eyes that could be so intense at times and yet revealed no soul. Such people might look normal, but inside it was as though some vital part of them was missing, and whenever I saw eyes like that I'd learnt to turn and run and guard my back while I was leaving.”
― Susanna Kearsley, quote from The Rose Garden
“Alex and Conner looked at each other, thinking the same thing—they weren’t going to get rid of him. Rather than spending time arguing, the twins went right into forming the next phase of their own plan. “One of us needs to stay in Neverland and look after the books,” Alex said. “Who’s it going to be this time?” The twins, the Tin Woodman, Mother Goose, and Lester all turned to Red. Her eyes grew large and her whole body tightened—every part of her rejected the idea. “Don’t even think about it,” Red said. “I’m not staying on this island.” “Red, I don’t mean to sound rude, but you’re the least useful in the group,” Conner said. “We need you to stay here and make sure nothing happens to the books.” “These savages have already shot me,” Red said, and pointed at the Lost Boys. “What do you think they’ll do to me when I’m alone?” “Red, I promise you’ll be safer here than in Wonderland,” Alex said. Red couldn’t believe her ears. She might as well have been persuaded to walk off a cliff. The twins didn’t give her any more chance to argue. Before she knew it, Conner was handing her their copy of Peter Pan as if the decision was final. “Boys, I order you to listen to Miss Red,” Peter instructed. “I want you to protect her and make her very comfortable while we’re away. Treat her like you would your own mother.” The Lost Boys were very excited by this idea. Red looked like she was going to be sick. “Yes, sir!” Tootles said, and saluted Peter. “Now just wait one minute! Am I supposed to sleep in the jungle?” Red asked, but none of her friends were listening anymore. “Of”
― Chris Colfer, quote from Beyond the Kingdoms
The Metamorphosis
The Name of the Wind
The Name of the Rose
The Scarlet Letter
Hush, Hush
The Five People You...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.
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