Elie Wiesel · 339 pages
Rating: (3.1K votes)
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. 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.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“I shall never forget Juliek. How could I forget this concert given before an audience of the dead and dying? Even today, when I hear that particular piece by Beethoven, my eyes close and out of the darkness emerges the pale and melancholy face of my Polish comrade bidding farewell to an audience of dying men.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“Had the situation not been so tragic, we might have laughed.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“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 furnaces? Praised be Thy Holy Name, for having chosen us to be slaughtered on Thine altar?”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“True enemies aren't always the ones who hate each other.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“Sometimes I am asked if I know the response to Auschwitz; I answer that not only do I not know it, but that I don't even know if a tragedy of this magnitude HAS a response. What I do know is that there is response in responsibility. When we speak of this era of evil and darkness, so close and yet so distant, responsibility is the key word,
The witness has forced himself to testify. For the youth of today, for the children who will be born tomorrow. He does not want his past to become their future.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“Hubiera querido agregar: ¿por qué agradecerle? Hacía mucho que no comprendía qué había hecho el buen Dios para merecer al hombre.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“The God of impotence made her eyes flame. Mine too. I thought: I am going to die. Whoever sees God must die. It is written in the Bible. I had never quite understood that: why should God be allied with death? Why should He want to kill a man who succeeded in seeing Him? Now, everything became clear. God was ashamed. God likes to sleep with twelve-year old girls. And He Doesn't want us to know. Whoever sees it or guesses it must die so as not to divulge the secret. Death is only the guard who protects God, the doorkeeper of the immense brothel that we call the universe. I am going to die, I thought. And my fingers, clenched around my throat, kept pressing harder and harder, against my will.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
“Dead souls have more to say than living ones.”
― Elie Wiesel, quote from The Night Trilogy: Night/Dawn/Day
Elie Wiesel
Born place: in Sighet, Romania
Born date September 30, 1928
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“No man can rob successfully over a period of years without pleasing the people he robs.”
― Theodore Sturgeon, quote from The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon, Volume II: Microcosmic God
“What’s it about?” Danny seemed authentically curious.
“The night. It’s got its own set of rules.”
“Day’s got rules too.”
“Oh, I know,” Joe said, “but I don’t like them.” They stared through the mesh at each other for a long time.
“I don’t understand,” Danny said softly.
“I know you don’t,” Joe said. “You, you buy into all this stuff about good guys and bad guys in the world. A loan shark breaks a guy’s leg for not paying his debt, a banker throws a guy out of his home for the same reason, and you think there’s a difference, like the banker’s just doing his job but the loan shark’s a criminal. I like the loan shark because he doesn’t pretend to be anything else, and I think the banker should be sitting where I’m sitting right now. I’m not going to live some life where I pay my fucking taxes and fetch the boss a lemonade at the company picnic and buy life insurance. Get older, get fatter, so I can join a men’s club in Back Bay, smoke cigars with a bunch of assholes in a back room somewhere, talk about my squash game and my kid’s grades. Die at my desk, and they’ll already have scraped my name off the office door before the dirt’s hit the coffin.”
“But that’s life,” Danny said.
“That’s a life. You want to play by their rules? Go ahead. But I say their rules are bullshit. I say there are no rules but the ones a man makes for himself.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Live by Night
“At war a Russian man puts on a white shirt. He may live in sin, but he dies like a saint.”
― Vasily Grossman, quote from A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army
“Oftentimes your conscious mind interferes with the normal rhythm of the heart, lungs, and functioning of the stomach and intestines by worry, anxiety, fear, and depression. These patterns of thought interfere with the harmonious functioning of your subconscious mind. When mentally disturbed, the best procedure is to let go, relax, and still the wheels of your thought processes. Speak to your subconscious mind, telling it to take over in peace, harmony, and divine order. You will find that all the functions of your body will become normal again. Be sure to speak to your subconscious mind with authority and conviction, and it will conform to your command.”
― Joseph Murphy, quote from THE POWER OF YOUR SUBCONSCIOUS MIND (Tamil)
“Alice would choose to love herself, different and extraordinary, every day of the week.”
― Tahereh Mafi, quote from Furthermore
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