For he who loses all often easily loses himself.
PRIMO LEVIIt is the duty of righteous men to make war on all undeserved privilege, but one must not forget that this is a war without end.
More Primo Levi Quotes
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It happened, therefore it can happen again: this is the core of what we have to say. It can happen, and it can happen everywhere.
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Each of us bears the imprint of a friend met along the way; In each the trace of each.
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They sensed that what had happened around them and in their presence, and in them, was irrevocable.
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We collected in a group in front of their door, and we experienced within ourselves a grief that was new for us, the ancient grief of the people that has no land, the grief without hope of the exodus which is renewed in every century.
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Perfection belongs to narrated events, not to those we live.
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The origins of chemistry were ignoble, or at least equivocal: the dens of the alchemists, their abominable hodgepodge of ideas and language, their confessed interest in gold, their Levantine swindles typical of charlatans and magicians; instead.
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I have many times been praised for my lack of animosity towards the Germans. It’s not a philosophical virtue. It’s a habit of having my second reactions before the first.
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To accuse another of having weak kidneys, lungs, or heart, is not a crime; on the contrary, saying he has a weak brain is a crime.
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I live in my house as I live inside my skin: I know more beautiful, more ample, more sturdy and more picturesque skins: but it would seem to me unnatural to exchange them for mine.
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But they do not battle: they are bound together by a strong alliance, by the common faith “in the validity of Maxwell’s or Boltzmann’s equations,” and by the common acceptance of Darwinism and the molecular structure of DNA.
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Imagine now a man who is deprived of everyone he loves, and at the same time of his house, his habits, his clothes, in short, of everything he possesses: he will be a hollow man, reduced to suffering and needs, forgetful of dignity and restraint, for he who loses all often loses himself.
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The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.
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The living are more demanding; the dead can wait.
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The new kings of the world will live tranquilly for a long time, confining themselves to devouring each other and being parasites among each other on a cottage industry scale.
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Man is a centaur, a tangle of flesh and mind, divine inspiration and dust.
PRIMO LEVI