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The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by the Germans in defeat.

Primo Levi

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
We have collectively witnessed a fundamental unexpected event, fundamental precisely because unexpected, not foreseen by anyone.
PRIMO LEVI

Anyone Collectively Event Foreseen Fundamental Precisely Unexpect Witness
My number is 174517; we have been baptized, we will carry the tattoo on our left arm until we die.
PRIMO LEVI

Baptized Carry Left My Number Tattoo Until Die
I am none of these; I’m a normal man with a good memory who fell into a maelstrom and got out of it more by luck than by virtue, and who from that time on has preserved a certain curiosity about maelstroms large and small, metaphorical and actual.
PRIMO LEVI

Actual Good Lucky Maelstorm Man Memory None Normal Preserve Curiosity Virtue
The problem to be solved, the mystery to be clarified. It is never a matter of civil war; even though of different opinions, or of different political leanings, scientists dispute each other, they compete.
PRIMO LEVI

Classified Complete Different Each Matter Mystery never Opinion Other Problem Scientist Solve
There are few men who know how to go to their deaths with dignity, and often they are not those whom one would expect.
PRIMO LEVI

Death Dignity Expect Few Know Men Often Whom
The principle of order in me, around me, and in the world… I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: “I will understand this, too, I will understand everything.
PRIMO LEVI

Around Bud Everything Granite Principle Spring Swell Understand Watch World
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
If a writer is convinced that he is honest, then it is very difficult for him to be a bad writer.
PRIMO LEVI

Bad Convince Difficult Honest Writer
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
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.
PRIMO LEVI

Acceptance Battle Common DNA Faith Molecular Strong Structure Together Validity
At the origin of physics lay the strenuous clarity of the West-Archimedes and Euclid.
PRIMO LEVI

Clarity Country Origin People Person Physics Strenuous West
We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses.
PRIMO LEVI

Camp Survive True Witness
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.
PRIMO LEVI

Accuse Brain Contrary Crime Have Heart Kidney Ling Nothing Says Weak Wek
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
Did chemistry theorems exist? No: therefore you had to go further, not be satisfied with the quia, go back to the origins, to mathematics and physics.
PRIMO LEVI

Chemistry Exist Further Go Satisfy Theorem Therefore

The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by the Germans in defeat.

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The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by the Germans in defeat.

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