“I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“Logic and morality made it impossible to accept an illogical and immoral reality; they engendered a rejection of reality which as a rule led the cultivated man rapidly to despair. But the varieties of the man-animal are innumerable, and I saw and have described men of refined culture, especially if young, throw all this overboard, simplify and barbarize themselves, and survive. A simple man, accustomed not to ask questions of himself, was beyond the reach of the useless torment of asking himself why.
The harsher the oppression, the more widespread among the oppressed is the willingness, with all its infinite nuances and motivations, to collaborate: terror, ideological seduction, servile imitation of the victor, myopic desire for any power whatsoever… Certainly, the greatest responsibility lies with the system, the very structure of the totalitarian state; the concurrent guilt on the part of individual big and small collaborators is always difficult to evaluate… they are the vectors and instruments of the system’s guilt… the room for choices (especially moral choices) was reduced to zero”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“Willingly or not we come to terms with power, forgetting that we are all in the ghetto, that the ghetto is walled in, that outside the ghetto reign the lords of death, and that close by the train is waiting." by Primo Levi in Drowned”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“Compassion and brutality can coexist in the same individual and in the same moment...”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“Se comprendere è impossibile, conoscere è necessario, perché ciò che è accaduto, può ritornare, le coscienze possono nuovamente essere sedotte e oscurate: anche le nostre.”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“The institution represented an attempt to shift onto others — specifically, the victims — the burden of guilt, so that they were deprived of even the solace of innocence.”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“If we had to and were able to suffer the sufferings of everyone, we could not live.”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“Come Rumkowski, anche noi siamo così abbagliati dal potere e dal prestigio da dimenticare la nostra fragilità essenziale: col potere veniamo a patti, volentieri o no, dimenticando che nel ghetto siamo tutti, che il ghetto è cintato, che fuori del recinto stanno i signori della morte, e che poco lontano aspetta il treno.”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“Suicide is an act of man and not of the animal.”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“However this war may end, we have won the war against you; none of you will be left to bear witness, but even if some of you survive, the world would not believe him. There will perhaps be suspicions, discussions, research by historians, but there will be no certainties, because we will destroy the evidence together with you. And even if some proof should remain and some of you survive, people will say that the events you describe are too monstrous to be believed: they will say they are the exaggerations of Allied propaganda and will believe us, who will deny everything, and not you. We will be the ones to dictate the history of the Lagers." -- SS Officer, quoted in The Drowned and the Saved by Primo Levi”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“The memories which lie within us are not carved in stone; not only do they tend to becomeerased as the years go by, but often they change, or even grow, by incorporating extraneous features. Judges know this very well: almost never do two eyewitnesses of the same event describe it in the same way and with the same words, even if the event is recent and if neither of them has a personal interest in distorting it.”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“An extreme case of the distortion of the memory of a committed guilty act is found in its suppression. Here, too, the borderline between good and bad faith can be vague; behind the "I don't know" and "I do not remember" that one hears in courtrooms there is sometimes the precise intent to lie, but at other times it is a fossilized lie, rigidified in a formula.”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
“Si può credersi o dichiararsi angosciati per un motivo, ed esserlo per tutt'altro: credere di soffrire davanti al futuro, e soffrire invece per il proprio passato; credere di soffrire per gli altri, per pietà, per com-passione, e soffrire invece per motivi nostri, più o meno profondi, o meno confessabili e confessati; talvolta cosi profondi che solo lo specialista, l'analista delle anime, li sa disseppellire.”
― Primo Levi, quote from The Drowned and the Saved
Primo Levi
Born place: in Turin, Italy
Born date July 31, 1919
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“I don’t think my sister is old enough to have sex.”
“V, she’s the same age you are.”
He frowned for a moment. Was she? Or had he been born first?”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Lover Unleashed
“But do I have “low intelligence”?”
― Jeff Kinney, quote from Diary of a Wimpy Kid
“I used to comfort myself with the belief that it was only certain individuals and their peculiar notions that spoilt things for the rest of us. But how many individuals does it take before it's not the individuals who are prejudiced but society itself?”
― Malorie Blackman, quote from Noughts & Crosses
“It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.”
― Maggie Stiefvater, quote from The Scorpio Races
“What do you know of love or marriage?" I asked. "You were all set to marry a woman ten years older than you before the King stole her away."
"I wouldn't have married her anyway," Loki shrugged. "Not if I didn't love her."
"Now you've got integrity?" I scoffed. "You kidnapped me, and your father was a traitor."
"I've never said a nice word about my father," Loki said quickly. "And I've never done anything bad to you."
"You still kidnapped me!" I said dubiously.
"Did I?" Loki cocked his head. "Because I remember Kyra kidnapping you,and me preventing her from pummeling you to death. Then,when you were coughing up blood, I sent for the Queen to help you. When you escaped,I didn't stop you. And since I came here,I've done nothing to you. I've even been good because you told me to be. So what terrible crimes have I committed against you, Princess?"
"I-I-" I stammered. "I never said you did anything terrible."
"Then why don't you trust me, Wendy?"
He'd never called me by my name before, and the underlying affection underneath it startled me. Even his eyes, which still held their usual veil of playfulness, had something deeper brewing underneath. When he wasn't trying so hard to be devilishly handsome, he actually was.
The growing connection I felt with him unnerved me, but I didn't want him to see that. More than that,it didn't matter what feelings I might be having for him.He was leaving today, and I would probably never see him again.
"I do trust you," I admitted. "I do trust you.I just don't know why I do,and I don't know why you've been helping me."
"You want the truth?" He smiled at me, and there was something sincere and sweet underlying. "You piqued my curiosity."
"You risked your life for me because you were curious?" I asked doubtfully.
"As soon as you came to,your only conern was for helping your friends, and you never stopped," Loki said. "You were kind. And I haven't seen that much kindness in my life.”
― Amanda Hocking, quote from Torn
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