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Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.

Primo Levi

I am not even alive enough to know how to kill myself
PRIMO LEVI

Enough Kill Known Live Myself
Perhaps one cannot, what is more one must not, understand what happened, because to understand [the Holocaust] is almost to justify.
PRIMO LEVI

Almost Happened Holocaust Justify More Must One Perhaps Understand
Everyone dreamed past and future dreams, of slavery and redemption, of improbable paradises, of equally mythical and improbable enemies; cosmic enemies, perverse and subtle, who pervade everything like the air.
PRIMO LEVI

Air Dream Equality Everyone Everything Future Mythical Past Perverse Redemption Slavery Suitable
A country is considered the more civilised the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak and a powerful one too powerful.
PRIMO LEVI

Become Civilised Consider Country Efficiency Lawm Hinder Man More Weak Wek Wisdom
Conquering matter is to understand it, and understanding matter is necessary to understanding the universe and ourselves: and that therefore Mendeleev’s Periodic Table, which just during those weeks we were learning to unravel, was poetry.
PRIMO LEVI

Conquer Matter Necessary Ourselves Poetry Understand Universe
For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law.
PRIMO LEVI

Back Chemistry Come Envelop Future Indefinite Life Potential Represent Torn Volute
Sooner or later in life everyone discovers that perfect happiness is unrealizable, but there are few who pause to consider the antithesis: that perfect unhappiness is equally unattainable.
PRIMO LEVI

Antithesis Consider Discover Everyone Few Happiness Later Life Pause Perfect Sooner Unreliable
To be considered stupid and to be told so is more painful than being called gluttonous, mendacious, violent, lascivious, lazy, cowardly: every weakness, every vice, has found its defenders, its rhetoric, its ennoblement and exaltation, but stupidity hasn’t.
PRIMO LEVI

Call Consider Coward Defender Ennoblement Exatiation Lascivious Lazy Mendacious More Painful Stupidity Told Vice Violent Weakness
An enemy who sees the error of his ways ceases to be an enemy.
PRIMO LEVI

Cease Enemy Error See Way
Fascism does not want them, forbids them, and that’s why you’re not a Fascist; it wants everybody to be the same, and you are not. But immaculate virtue does not exist either, or if it exists it is detestable.
PRIMO LEVI

Detestable Everybody Fascism Forbid Immature Same Virtue
In fact, the existence of the death squads had a meaning, a message: ‘We, the master race, are your destroyers, but you are no better than we are; if we so wish, and we do so wish, we can destroy not only your bodies, but also your souls, just as we have destroyed ours.
PRIMO LEVI

Better Body Death Destroy Existence Fact Master Message Our Soul Squad Wish
The obstacles preventing the realization of both these extreme states are of the same nature: they derive from our human condition which is opposed to everything infinite.
PRIMO LEVI

Both Deprive Everything Extreme Infinite Nature Obstacle Prevent Realization Sam State
We are those who, through prevarication, skill or luck, never touched bottom. Those who have, and who have seen the face of the Gorgon, did not return, or returned wordless.
PRIMO LEVI

Bottom Luck never Prevarication Return Seen Skill Touch Wordless
Each of us bears the imprint of a friend met along the way; In each the trace of each.
PRIMO LEVI

Along Bear Each Friend Imprint Met Trace Way
He could hardly read or write but his heart spoke the language of the good
PRIMO LEVI

Good Hardly Heart Language Read Spoken
It 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.
PRIMO LEVI

Duty End Foret Make Mist Privilege Righteous Underserved War

Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.

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Auschwitz is outside of us, but it is all around us, in the air. The plague has died away, but the infection still lingers and it would be foolish to deny it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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