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The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.

Primo Levi

If it is true that there is no greater sorrow than to remember a happy time in a state of misery, it is just as true that calling up a moment of anguish in a tranquil mood, seated quietly at one’s desk, is a source of profound satisfaction.
PRIMO LEVI

Greater Sorrow Happy Misery Profound Remember Satisfactory State Time True
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
We will not return No one must leave here and so carry to the world, together with the sign impressed on his skin, the evil tidings of what man’s presumption made of man in Auschwitz
PRIMO LEVI

Carry Impress Leave Must Return Sign Skin Together Will World
The work of bestial degradation, begun by the victorious Germans, had been carried to its conclusion by the Germans in defeat.
PRIMO LEVI

Bestial Carry Conclusion Country Defeat Degradation Victorious Work
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
If you and your child were going to be killed tomorrow, would you not give him to eat today?
PRIMO LEVI

Child Eat Give Going Kill Today Tomorrow
We who survived the Camps are not true witnesses.
PRIMO LEVI

Camp Survive True Witness
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
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.
PRIMO LEVI

Again Core Everywhere Happen Happier Say
What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.
PRIMO LEVI

Acquire Barbarism Few Judge Knowledge Perhaps Period Physical Pure Return Very
A scientist’s life, the author says, is indeed conflictual, formed by battles, defeats, and victories: but the adversary is always and only the unknown.
PRIMO LEVI

Adversary Always Author Battle Conflictual Efrat Form Indeed Life Only Say Scientist Victory
Never again could it be cleansed; it would prove that man, the human species – we, in short – had the potential to construct an enormity of pain, and that pain is the only force created from nothing, without cost and without effort. It is enough not to see, not to listen, not to act.
PRIMO LEVI

Again Clean Contract Cot Create Effort Enough Force Human never Nothing Pain Potential Prove Species
I too entered the Lager as a nonbeliever, and as a nonbeliever I was liberated and have lived to this day.
PRIMO LEVI

Day Enter Larger Liberate Live Nonbelievever
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.
PRIMO LEVI

Animosity Country Lack Many Praise Time Towards
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
There is Auschwitz, and so there cannot be God.
PRIMO LEVI

Auschwitz Can Country God Not Person Place So

The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.

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The sea’s only gifts are harsh blows and, occasionally, the chance to feel strong.

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